Trump Resigns From Screen Actors Guild: ‘Your Organization Has Done Little’

Then-President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump arrive for a Christmas Eve dinner with their family at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Fla., on Dec. 24, 2019. (Nicholas Kamm/AFP via Getty Images)

Former President Donald Trump on Thursday, in a now-rare public statement, said he is resigning from the Screen Actor’s Guild (SAG) union, according to a letter.

Trump sent the letter to SAG President Gabrielle Carteris, criticizing the union and news outlets.

“I write to you today regarding the so-called Disciplinary Committee hearing aimed at revoking my union membership. Who cares!” Trump wrote to Carteris after SAG voted to say that Trump violated the union’s guidelines after the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.

“While I’m not familiar with your work, I’m very proud of my work on movies such as ‘Home Alone 2,’ ‘Zoolander,’ and ‘Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps’; and television shows including ’The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air,‘ ’Saturday Night Live,‘ and of course, one of the most successful shows in television history, ’The Apprentice'—to name just a few!” Trump wrote in the letter.

The president also wrote that he helped news outlets during his four years in office, namely MSNBC and CNN, which dedicated wall-to-wall coverage of his policies, tweets, public addresses, and featured a number of various anonymously-sourced reports.

His letter noted that the “cable news television business” was a “dying platform with not much time left until I got involved in politics,” adding that he created “thousands of jobs” in media due to the coverage of his presidency.

“Which brings me to your blatant attempt at free media attention to distract from your dismal record as a union,” Trump added. “Your organization has done little for its members, and nothing for me—besides collecting dues and promoting dangerous un-American policies and ideas—as evident by your massive unemployment rates and lawsuits from celebrated actors, who even recorded a video asking, ‘Why isn’t the union fighting for me?’”

“I no longer wish to be associated with your union,” Trump went on to say, adding: “As such, this letter is to inform you of my immediate resigning from SAG-AFTRA.”

The Epoch Times has reached out to SAG for comment.

Carteris last month asserted that the president “attacked the values that this union holds most sacred” following the Jan. 6 Capitol breach. A number of Democrats and some Republicans claimed Trump incited a crowd to break into the Capitol during the Joint Session of Congress. Trump said that the protesters should leave the premises and condemned the violence.

Trump was a member of the union since 1989.

Meanwhile, the Senate is slated to hold a second trial for Trump after the House impeached him over his remarks on Jan. 6. His attorneys, in a court brief, asserted that it is unconstitutional for a former president to be impeached while they added that his speech was protected under the First Amendment.

Before Jan. 20’s inauguration of President Joe Biden, Trump departed Washington and now resides at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida. Last week, he confirmed that he met with House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) and talked about how Republicans could re-capture the majority in the House of Representatives.