Aaron Sorkin kept Trump out of ‘Social Reckoning’ to avoid distraction

Director Aaron Sorkin says he deliberately left President Trump out of “The Social Reckoning,” his new film about Facebook’s role in the run-up to the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot, so the subject would not overshadow the movie’s focus on the social media company.

In an interview with Politico published Sept. 29, Mr. Sorkin acknowledged the film is political but said it shouldn’t be. Sony Pictures releases the movie Friday. Mr. Sorkin wrote and directed it, and it follows Jeff Horwitz, then a Wall Street Journal reporter, and Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen, whose leaked internal documents fed a 2021 series on the company’s internal research.

Mr. Sorkin said the studio never told him to omit Mr. Trump. He recalled meeting Sony Pictures chief Tom Rothman the day after turning in the script and volunteering that the Jan. 6 sequence would show no Trump signage and no red hats. In his description, the scene instead includes American and Confederate flags, along with “Don’t Tread on Me” and “Stop the Steal” imagery.

Mr. Sorkin said any Trump imagery would have pulled attention from the scene’s intended subject. He conceded the film may be read through that lens anyway, but said, “I just like to have clean hands.”

The release comes about a month before the midterm elections. Mr. Sorkin said he does not expect the film to alter the outcome, but chose not to wait until after the vote because he thought audiences would be less receptive by then, and he hoped it might serve as a reminder beforehand.

He made similar points to Vanity Fair, according to the A.V. Club, saying he was never asked to omit Mr. Trump and that the film concerns Facebook’s part in fueling division and extremism rather than a red-versus-blue story.

Facebook has pushed back on the reporting. A Facebook executive said in 2021 that the series contained mischaracterizations, and a Meta spokesperson said in 2022 that Facebook was not responsible for the Jan. 6 violence, pointing instead to Mr. Trump’s promotion of claims that the election was stolen.

Mr. Sorkin was also asked about Paramount Skydance’s takeover of Warner Bros. Discovery, which was pending at the time of the interview and closed Tuesday, according to the Associated Press. He said fewer studios hurt the industry. Asked whether the new leadership’s relationship with the Trump administration gave him pause, he said it did, and he doubted that new Warner Bros. leadership would have made his film.