The creator of HBO’s hit sitcom Veep said that he is having trouble finding financial backing to a project he’s working on related to President Donald Trump.
Armando Iannucci was speaking during an event in Liverpool, England when he claimed US studios don’t want to fund the project because they fear retribution, according to Deadline.
‘I got a lot of, “Yeah, you wouldn’t get the money for that at the moment, I’m afraid.’ So I said, “Why not?” [They replied] Well, you know, if you want what comes with it…’ he said.
He added, ‘[I’ve been] talking to journalists out there who say, “If you’re on the list, your life is made miserable.” [The message was], the inland revenue will come calling, you better lawyer up, you will spend the next four years just weighed down by legal issues you have to get through.’
It’s not clear what his new Trump project entails, but Iannucci said he’d be looking for funding outside the United States.
Iannucci’s dislike for Trump is no secret. He called him dangerous, unstable, deranged and an idiot in a 2017 interview with The Independent.
Iannucci’s film woes come as pressure from the Trump administration briefly convinced ABC — along local station owners Sinclair and Nexstar — to take Jimmy Kimmel’s late night show off the air.
Following a comment Kimmel made about the assassination of Charlie Kirk, FCC Chairman Brendan Carr went on Benny Johnson’s podcast and said, ‘We can do this the easy way or the hard way’.
Armando Iannucci, the creator of HBO’s hit sitcom Veep, said American financiers are refusing to back his upcoming project focusing on President Donald Trump out of fear they’ll face retaliation
‘These companies can find ways to change conduct to take action on Kimmel or, you know, there’s going to be additional work for the FCC ahead,’ Carr said during the interview on September 17.
‘Look, there’s calls for Kimmel to be fired. You could certainly see a path forward for suspension over this. Again, the FCC is going to have remedies that we can look at. We may ultimately be called to be a judge on that.’
Later that same day, Jimmy Kimmel Live! was pulled off the air by ABC and its parent company, Disney.
Trump celebrated Kimmel’s show being canceled and went on to say that some TV networks should have their broadcast licenses ‘taken away’ because they put out negative coverage of him.
‘I have read some place that the networks were 97 percent against me, again, 97 percent negative, and yet I won and easily,’ he said aboard Air Force One on September 18 while referring to his victory in the 2024 election.
The next day, at the White House, Trump said running ‘bad’ stories about him is ‘really illegal’.
‘When 97 percent of the stories are bad about a person, it’s no longer free speech,’ he said.
So far, Carr has not moved to suspend or withhold broadcast licenses, something he has argued he is entitled to do if a particular TV station is not serving the public interest.
Trump has sued numerous media companies for perceived unfair coverage of him, including ABC, CBS, The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal
Trump has, however, personally sued a number of media companies for perceived unfairness toward him.
ABC, the same network that axed Kimmel, settled with Trump for $15 million in December 2024 after George Stephanopoulos inaccurately said he was found civilly liable for ‘raping’ E. Jean Carroll.
He also filed suit against Paramount, the parent company of CBS, alleging that 60 Minutes deceptively edited an interview it did with then-presidential candidate Kamala Harris.
In July, Paramount also settled, agreeing to allocate $16 million to Trump’s future presidential library.
More recently, Trump has also set his sights on print outlets that have run damaging stories about him.
He sued The New York Times and four of its reporters in mid-September for three stories and a book he believes were intended to sabotage his presidential campaign.
The $15 billion complaint was quickly thrown out by a federal judge who called it ‘decidedly improper and impermissible’.
Trump also sued The Wall Street Journal after it published a birthday card Trump allegedly wrote to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.