'It's being complicit, just like an Ivanka Trump': New report sheds light on 'Apprentice' producer Mark Burnett's relationship with Donald Trump
A new feature in the New Yorker about producer Mark Burnett and his role in popularizing Donald Trump includes several controversial claims about the now president’s time as the host of The Apprentice.
Burnett conceived the premise for the NBC reality show in the early 2000s, eventually winning over Trump to star by playing to his ego.
“I need to show respect to Mr. Trump,” Burnett, who also produces Survivor, shared in a 2013 speech about hosting a live finale for the CBS series at a Trump-owned ice skating rink in Manhattan. “I said, ‘Welcome, everybody, to Trump Wollman skating rink. The Trump Wollman skating rink is a fine facility, built by Mr. Donald Trump. Thank you, Mr. Trump. Because the Trump Wollman skating rink is the place we are tonight and we love being at the Trump Wollman skating rink, Mr. Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump.”
But sources tell the New Yorker that Trump — who was originally intended to appear only in the first season — wasn’t quite the mogul the show made him out to be.
“Most of us knew he was a fake,” Jonathan Braun, an editor who worked on the first six seasons of The Apprentice, told writer Patrick Radden Keefe. “He had just gone through I don’t know how many bankruptcies. But we made him out to be the most important person in the world. It was like making the court jester the king.”
“We walked through the offices and saw chipped furniture,” added producer Bill Pruitt. “We saw a crumbling empire at every turn. Our job was to make it seem otherwise.”
Two former Apprentice contestants — Kwame Jackson of Season 1 (whom Michael Cohen recently claimed Trump had called a “black f*g”) and Season 4 winner Randall Pinkett also dispute the prestige Trump was given on the reality show.
While Jackson saw Trump’s ostentatious displays of wealth as a “joke,” Pinkett, who is also black, felt that his prize of a job with the Trump Organization — which he says was paid for by NBC, not the company — saw him being used to sell the Trump brand within the black community.
“The closer I got to Donald, the less I liked what I saw,” Pinkett said about being sent to promote a proposed Trump casino in a predominantly black area. “It’s like a person with bad breath.”
While former Apprentice staffers claim that Trump was prone to making inappropriate comments about women — “He’d say, ‘How about those boobs? Wouldn’t you like to f*** her?’” according to one ex-employee — they cast doubt about the purported existence of a tape from The Apprentice set in which Trump allegedly uses a racial slur.
“If somebody had the goods, it would have leaked long ago,” a person who worked on the show said. “There were no Trump fans on the set. I don’t know a single person who worked on the show who voted for Trump.”
What’s more, if such a tape existed, Burnett couldn’t release it without exposing himself to a lawsuit, as it would be a violation of contracts outlining how show footage can be used.
Still, many see Burnett as protecting Trump by doing more to distance himself from the president.
“He probably feels that if he torpedoes Donald Trump, he’ll torpedo a part of his own legacy,” Jackson said. “And it’s funny, because he has enough money and enough power in Hollywood that he could actually afford to speak up. … [His silence is] collusion. It’s being complicit, just like an Ivanka Trump. I’m very disappointed in Mark for that.”
Burnett did speak out during the election after tapes of Trump’s appearance on Access Hollywood were leaked, insisting that he is not “pro-Trump” and calling out “the hatred, division and misogyny that has been a very unfortunate part of his campaign.” But that didn’t stop him, sources say, from allegedly pitching in to help with his former star’s 2017 inauguration. According to a Democratic political operative tasked with discouraging celebrities from taking part in the inauguration, Trump had tapped Burnett to recruit stars like Paul Anka, Aretha Franklin and Elton John — none of whom agreed to perform.
“Mark was somebody we were actively working against,” the operative told the New Yorker.
It wasn’t successful, so he probably doesn’t want to be associated with it,” a source added regarding Burnett’s denial that he was involved in the inauguration, which was considerably less star-studded than past events.
Officially, Burnett has insisted that he is “not into politics,” as he allegedly told an ex-wife who implored him to take Trump to task.
“People are making it seem like Mark’s ignoring evil,” former Apprentice producer Katherine Walker said. “But I think it’s more benign than that — and scarier, in a way. He doesn’t care. He just wants to stay out of it.”
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