A fund backed by Hollywood stars, including Jeremy Strong and Chelsea Handler, provided nearly all of the money for Climate Defiance, the far-left group that carries out illegal demonstrations like storming the field at the Congressional Baseball Game to “defeat” what it calls “fossil fuel fascism,” tax filings reviewed by the Washington Free Beacon show. [some emphasis, links added]
The Hollywood-based Climate Emergency Fund (CEF) gave $250,000 to Climate Defiance’s political action arm and another $243,292 to its charitable arm in 2024, according to the filings.
That means the CEF provided more than half of the two groups’ combined grant revenue and the entire revenue for the charitable arm, the Climate Defiance Foundation.
The records provide the most complete view of Climate Defiance’s finances since it was founded in 2023 for the purpose of pressuring officials to fight climate change, which it says is “an existential crisis that threatens every fiber of every being in every corner of the world.”
It also comes shortly after the IRS formally granted the group tax-exempt status in July 2025.
We were brutalized tonight – beaten and bruised as we took over the Congressional Baseball Game. Our bodies are bloodied but our spirits are unmoved. We will build a better world. We will rise again. We will prevail. Just you wait. pic.twitter.com/hganGo5Ogw
— Climate Defiance (@ClimateDefiance) June 13, 2024
The nearly three-year-old organization has emerged as one of the most extreme protest groups in the nation, regularly disrupting public events and speeches in an effort to force lawmakers to rapidly abandon fossil fuel power in favor of green energy.
It accuses oil executives and other officials who support fossil fuels of “mass murder.” One of their activists once went viral for calling former West Virginia senator Joe Manchin a “sick fuck” and “hideous fiend” to his face over his support for a large natural gas pipeline.
Perhaps its most high-profile protest came during the annual Congressional Baseball Game in July 2024, when Washington, D.C., police arrested eight of its members after they stormed the field demanding an end to fossil fuels.
“Make no mistake: It’s the Members of Congress who should be locked up,” the group wrote afterwards.
UPDATE: Eight of us have been arrested for shutting down the Congressional Baseball Game.
They are behind bars right now.
Make no mistake: It’s the Members of Congress who should be locked up. pic.twitter.com/tNoB4jh0xp
— Climate Defiance (@ClimateDefiance) June 13, 2024
The group regularly protested former Biden administration officials, including then-energy secretary Jennifer Granholm and then-transportation secretary Pete Buttigieg, yet still earned a private meeting with White House clean energy czar John Podesta in late 2023, where it urged him to block proposed gas export facilities.
A few weeks later, in late January 2024, former president Joe Biden ceded to those demands. The White House touted Climate Defiance’s support for the action.
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The CEF, for its part, was founded in 2019 and has since received millions of dollars from Hollywood elites including actors Strong, Handler, and Thomas Middleditch; Walt Disney heiress and filmmaker Abigail Disney; director Adam McKay; producers Shannon O’Leary Joy and Geralyn Dreyfous; Getty Oil heiress Aileen Getty; and Rory Kennedy, the daughter of former attorney general Robert F. Kennedy.
Strong, McKay, Joy, and Kennedy all serve on the CEF’s board of directors.
In 2024, the CEF received $1.4 million from McKay’s foundation, $250,000 from the left-wing Rockefeller Family Fund, $15,000 from Getty’s foundation, $10,000 from singer and actress Barbra Streisand’s foundation, and $4,000 from actress Jane Fonda’s foundation.
Top image via Climate Defiance/X
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