Sign language. Do you speak it?
Back when we used to watch Celebrity Apprentice -- before we stopped because every challenge turned into "who can call the most rich friends to get them to give money for this fundraiser," and that makes for programming almost as dull as Donald Trump's speeches -- we have a vague memory of actress Marlee Matlin kicking ass and taking names.
But -- would you even have guessed??? -- it turns out host Donald Trump had other thoughts on the matter. In inane notes that he scribbled to himself, he more than once called her "retarded." As you do. Just kidding. As you only do if you are Donald Trump.
During the taping of the show, Trump would often scribble down notes while sitting at the table of “the boardroom”—the show’s primary set. A person familiar with the notes who helped clean up after tapings said that on one of the pieces of paper, Trump wrote: “Marlee, is she retarded??” [...]
“[Trump] would make fun of her voice. It actually sounded a lot like what he did [to] the New York Times guy,” another person who worked on The Apprentice for years told The Daily Beast, referring to when Trump mocked a disabled reporter last year. The source said this incident occurred outside the boardroom, during a break from filming. “Like, to make it seem like she was mentally not there? [It] sounded like he got a real kick out of it. It was really upsetting.”
That is upsetting! No worse than Trump's normal level of "upsetting," but still! Let's watch Marlee Matlin act for a moment, so we can see how her deafness makes her stupid:
Oh, right, it was Josh Lyman who was stupid, for a change! We forgot to watch all the way to the end of the clip, but we assume he managed to fit in some smugness, too?
ANYWAY! What does Marlee Matlin have to say to Donald Trump?
Well, one time, she said it to his face:
“In the boardroom, he would talk to her like she was ‘special,’” the source said. “He took her deafness as a some kind of [mental] handicap.” The staffer recalls sitting in the control room during the shoot for one episode and being taken aback hearing Trump make an “insensitive” comment about Matlin’s deafness to the actress while she was seated across the boardroom table.
“She responded [to him], she stood up for herself,” the source said. (This exchange was not included in the final cut of the episode.)
Wasn't included in the episode? Donald Trump making fun of a person's disability and getting his ass bodyslammed into his stupid desk? That's weird, since he does that shit on TV all the damn time!
Anyway, Marlee Matlin responded again after the Daily Beast's story came out. But she used too big of words for Donald Trump to understand : (
Recent media reports have circulated that Donald Trump allegedly referred to me as 'retarded.' The term is abhorrent and should never been used. The fact that we are talking about this during a very important moment in American history has upset me deeply.
I am Deaf. There are millions of Deaf and hard of hearing people like me, in the United States and around the world who face discrimination and misunderstanding on like this on a daily basis. It is unacceptable.
So, what's the response? It's not about insults or taking each other down. As a person who is Deaf, as a woman, as a mom, as a wife, as an actor, I have a voice. And I'm using that voice to make myself heard...and vote.
Whoops, looks like the election got rigged again!
[ DailyBeast ]
Or maybe it was the garbage disposal instead of the salad spinner.
So much admiration for him..for this and so many other reasons.