00:00It was eerily quiet in Hollywood following Tuesday's historic election, which saw the
00:04Democrats retake control of both chambers of Congress. And there's a reason for that.
00:11Hollywood has a powerful network of donors and, of course, celebrities who we have seen over the
00:17years that have been more than willing to get out and stump for Democratic candidates. But when
00:23Donald Trump was re-elected, celebrity activism ultimately went into hibernation, as did
00:29Hollywood's donors class. Now, the reason for that is because the entertainment industry's
00:34activists were so upset about what they felt was the cover-up of the true nature of former
00:41President Joe Biden's mental health. And when it was truly exposed that he really was not fit to
00:48be running for a second term, they were furious. So in the first two years of the Trump administration,
00:53they basically went into hibernation. There weren't many major events. There was no
00:59real outreach between Washington, D.C. and Hollywood. And donors were just kind of sitting back and
01:05saying, I'm not going to open my checkbook right now. Now, what we saw on Tuesday's midterms and
01:11leading up to it was that Hollywood's political machine was actually working, but very, very quietly
01:18and very behind the scenes. As I reported today, there was a half a dozen to a dozen
01:27fundraisers that were held in L.A., but you didn't know about them. And that was totally by design
01:32because politicians who came through to L.A. basically said, we don't want people to know
01:37that we're here. And so people who came to these events were told and urged not to take photos and
01:44certainly not to post them to social media. And I know that certain reporters, when they found out
01:50that certain candidates like John Ossoff or Mr. Tallarico were in Los Angeles, the people who were
01:56organizing events asked us not to report on them. So what we're seeing and the end result of this
02:02is that Hollywood's political machine is still there. It's just working in a much more furtive
02:07and secretive way and trying to deploy its power much more strategically than it has in the past.
