James Carville said he’s stunned that Amazon is spending $40 million to license a documentary on Melania Trump but suggested Thursday that the sum is merely a poorly veiled gift from founder Jeff Bezos to President-elect Donald Trump and his wife.
“What’s happening right in front of your fucking eyes, right there, they’re paying her $40 million,” said Carville in a video for Politicon. “I don’t know; somebody better look into this. They could make a documentary on the history of the universe and not spend $40 million.”
Bezos has grown increasingly chummy with Trump. The Washington Post owner pulled a Post endorsement of Vice President Kamala Harris ahead of November’s election and congratulated Trump on winning. And Amazon has announced a $1 million donation to Trump’s inauguration.
Carville, a longtime Democratic strategist who warned of the dangers of another Trump term in the Oval Office, freely shared his suspicions Thursday about this latest payment, which an Amazon spokesperson told Variety on Sunday is for the former first lady’s “truly unique story.”
The documentary is reportedly being co-executive produced by Melania Trump.
“This is something I’m going to claim some expertise in, the subject of documentaries, because I’ve been the subject of two, and I’ve been the subject of a recent one,” Carville said Thursday, noting, “You can produce a world-class documentary for $2 million.”
“You couldn’t spend $40 million on a documentary if you tried 10 times harder to do it, so where’s the money going?” he added. “Well, we know where the money is going. And to Bezos, who’s worth, I don’t know, $400 billion or something, this is all chump change.”
Bezos stepped down as Amazon’s CEO in 2021 but remains the executive chair. According to Bloomberg’s index of the 500 richest people, Bezos has a net worth of $241 billion — trailing only Trump acolyte Elon Musk and Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg.
Carville noted that ABC agreed to pay $15 million toward Trump’s presidential library in December to settle a defamation lawsuit. He argued that because “Bezos is richer,” the billionaire decided on a much larger payment to license the Melania Trump film.
“It’s breathtaking,” Carville said.
The documentary is being directed by Brett Ratner, who faced numerous sexual misconduct allegations in 2017 at the height of the #MeToo movement — and hasn’t directed a feature film since 2014’s critically panned “Hercules.”
We Need Your Support
Already contributed? Log in to hide these messages.
The untitled documentary project is set to be released in theaters and on Prime Video later this year.
This post was originally published on here
