Hey Remember That Time Trump Called 'Celebrity Apprentice' Contestant The 'N'-Word? This Guy Does.
Hey Remember That Time Trump Called 'Celebrity Apprentice' Contestant The 'N'-Word? This Guy Does.
Don't get your hopes up for the tapes.
There have long been rumors that, on the set of “The Celebrity Apprentice,” or maybe somewhere else, maybe all kinds of places, Donald Trump has said the N-word. It would surprise just about nobody. He’s a disgusting racist, and a stupid one.
Comedian Noel Casler, who used to work on the show, has said that Trump has said the word, and has also shared allegations about Trump’s drug use and girdle and the lifts in his shoes and so forth. Holly Robinson Peete has said he called her the “N”-word, Omarosa has said he says it, Tom Arnold says he said it, and there has been lots of talk of there being tapes.
And so on and so forth. But no confirmation has come out, no tapes. Any tapes that existed were always assumed to be in producer Mark Burnett’s vaults.
Could that change? Or is this just yet another thing Trump will never face accountability for?
Former “Apprentice” exec Bill Pruitt has a very long piece in Slate today where he’s telling all the stories he says he couldn’t tell for 20 years, because his NDA just expired. It takes 10,000 words to get to this story, but we’ll cut right to it. It was a discussion about contestant Kwame Jackson, Pruitt says, and it went like this:
We lay out the virtues and deficiencies of each finalist to Trump in a fair and balanced way, but sensing the moment at hand, [judge and former Trump exec Carolyn] Kepcher sort of comes out of herself. She expresses how she observed [Kwame] Jackson at the casino overcoming more obstacles than [Bill] Rancic, particularly with the way he managed the troublesome Omarosa. Jackson, Kepcher maintains, handled the calamity with grace.
“I think Kwame would be a great addition to the organization,” Kepcher says to Trump, who winces while his head bobs around in reaction to what he is hearing and clearly resisting.
“Why didn’t he just fire her?” Trump asks, referring to Omarosa. It’s a reasonable question. Given that this the first time we’ve ever been in this situation, none of this is something we expected.
“That’s not his job,” [showrunner Jay] Bienstock says to Trump. “That’s yours.” Trump’s head continues to bob.
“I don’t think he knew he had the ability to do that,” Kepcher says. Trump winces again.
“Yeah,” he says to no one in particular, “but, I mean, would America buy a n— winning?”
Kepcher’s pale skin goes bright red. I turn my gaze toward Trump. He continues to wince. He is serious, and he is adamant about not hiring Jackson.
Bienstock does a half cough, half laugh, and swiftly changes the topic or throws to Ross for his assessment. What happens next I don’t entirely recall. I am still processing what I have just heard. We all are. Only Bienstock knows well enough to keep the train moving. None of us thinks to walk out the door and never return. I still wish I had.
That’s kind of a specific anecdote. Raise your hand if you don’t believe it so we can smack you with your own hand for being an idiot.
Sure would like to hear the tape, though.
It would matter. It’s like the “grab ‘em by the pussy” tape. Everybody knew Trump was a misogynist and a predator before they heard that, but hearing it made it more visceral. Hearing it instead of having it described to you, or God forbid having to read it, is also handy for a nation with zero attention span that, let’s face it, can’t read good.
If you’re skeptical of how much it would matter, remember what happened the day the “Access Hollywood” tape came out, the panic it sent the Trump campaign into? It was October 7, 2016. Remember how the “Access Hollywood” tape came out and like 85 seconds later, Russia-We-Mean-WikiLeaks dumped the hacked John Podesta emails? Remember how Roger Stone was desperate for Russia-We-Mean-WikiLeaks to drop those emails right then, to distract from news coverage of “Access Hollywood”? Remember how it was almost too perfect, especially on the afternoon of the morning the Obama administration first publicly confirmed the ongoing Russian attack on the election?
Pruitt says it’s on tape. He also writes:
[W]e scammed. We swindled. Nobody heard the racist and misogynistic comments or saw the alleged cheating, the bluffing, or his hair taking off in the wind. Those tapes, I’ve come to believe, will never be found.
Don’t get your hopes up.
OPEN THREAD.
[Slate]
Evan Hurst on Twitter right here.
@evanjosephhurst on Threads!
I have profiles those other places but I think I forgot how to log on.
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OK. Here's the thing. All these people who say "Boy oh boy I wish I could have said something in 2016, but I was under an NDA" . . . They're fucking cowards. An NDA is a civil contract between two individuals. If you breach it, there are, at worst, $ penalties. No jail. (This is aside from whether they could have won a 1st amendment case invalidating the NDA, for which they would certainly have gotten free representation from the ACLU.)
Breaching an agreement is not breaking the law. People and corporations do the math all the time, to decide whether it makes more sense to keep their contractual promises, or pay out.
These mfuckers let the country go to shit, because of money, pure and simple.
"None of us thinks to walk out the door and never return. I still wish I had.
That’s kind of a specific anecdote. Raise your hand if you don’t believe it so we can smack you with your own hand for being an idiot."
`
I believe it, and I'll tell you why.
I've been in similar situations, and when somebody says or does something truly appalling, everybody sort of goes blank for a second -- like that trope in movies in TV where the soundtrack goes silent. It takes a minute or two of standing there like, "Did that just happen?" until you're able to even process it.