Johnny Depp Pokes Fun at Donald Trump's Tariffs While Dressed as Movie Character at Comic-Con: Watch

Johnny Depp made a surprise appearance at the 2026 San Diego Comic-Con dressed as Ebenezer Scrooge, pulling off a viral stunt to promote his upcoming movie Ebenezer.

While in character on Thursday, July 23, he drew major laughs from the crowd by slipping in a political quip targeted at President Donald Trump's trade policies.

During a Victorian-themed interactive presentation in San Diego’s Gaslamp Quarter, Depp's crotchety Scrooge began aggressively ripping decorative garlands off a mock property gate, declaring them to be "poison.”

When a nearby performer protested his behavior, Depp, 63, retorted, "That's on my property, which means that I own it. And you're paying tax on it being there, 'cause everybody has to pay all that stuff. Putting tariffs on the gate."

The crowd immediately erupted into laughter at the obvious real-world connection. The punchline landed directly in the wake of Trump reigniting intense international trade disputes by enacting steep tariffs on imports.

In response to Depp's Dickensian dig, Entertainment Weekly magazine posted on X, “Anyone have this on their bingo card? Johnny Depp makes a Trump tariff joke while dressed as Scrooge at San Diego #ComicCon to promote his new movie 'Ebenezer.'”

The Trump administration just rolled out a massive new wave of tariffs ranging from 10 percent to 12.5 percent on 60 trading partners, effectively covering 99.4 percent of all U.S. imports. Announced by U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer, these new duties are legally justified under Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974.

This wasn’t the actor's first jab at the unpopular president.

At the 2017 Glastonbury Festival in England, Depp sparked intense national backlash and triggered a Secret Service investigation over comments he made about Trump.

While addressing the crowd, Depp referenced the 1865 assassination of Abraham Lincoln by actor John Wilkes Booth, asking the audience, "When was the last time an actor assassinated a president?"

He later apologized, stating that his remarks were a bad joke in poor taste and that he never intended to cause harm.

He also previously described Trump as a "brat" with a created pretense and parodied him in a 2016 Funny or Die spoof.

Depp's Scrooge stunt wasn't limited to the street activation. He later crashed a high-profile panel in Hall H to officially debut the movie's first trailer.

Ebenezer, scheduled for release on November 13, is a gothic, reimagined take on Charles Dickens' classic A Christmas Carol, directed by Ti West and distributed by Paramount Pictures with a star-studded lineup alongside Depp that includes Ian McKellen, Rupert Grint, Daisy Ridley, Sam Claflin and Andrea Riseborough.

The trailer directly nods to Depp's return to mainstream Hollywood cinema following his victory in a headline-making defamation case in 2022 against ex-wife Amber Heard, opening with text reminding audiences that the "master of misfits returns" before his Scrooge turns to the camera and says, "It's good to be back.”