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May 30, 2024 7:50 AM Subscribe
Bill Pruitt's NDA, that is, from his time 20 years ago creating the entertainment show featuring Donald Trump, known as The Apprentice. Pruitt explains what he saw and what he let happen in a piece for Slate.
That sure took a lot of words to tell us nothing except the author was a TV producer and Trump isn't secretly nice in person.
posted by Nelson at 8:29 AM on May 30 [17 favorites]
posted by Nelson at 8:29 AM on May 30 [17 favorites]
It describes one's time working in the Bullshit Factory. There's no harm in exposing more people to the inner workings of the Industry, though. I approve.
posted by Jessica Savitch's Coke Spoon at 8:33 AM on May 30 [14 favorites]
posted by Jessica Savitch's Coke Spoon at 8:33 AM on May 30 [14 favorites]
Already seeing a lot of commentary online about how this will just encourage TFG's followers to start using the N-word in public. That's sadly plausible.
posted by Halloween Jack at 8:39 AM on May 30 [2 favorites]
posted by Halloween Jack at 8:39 AM on May 30 [2 favorites]
Also, this is intriguing:
posted by Melismata at 8:50 AM on May 30 [15 favorites]
“The idea is to have a new and different billionaire every season—just like there’s a new and different island on Survivor. We reached out to Spielberg, Katzenberg, Geffen, among others,” he says. “Trump is the only one who agreed to sign on.” (Bienstock didn’t respond to a request for comment)I have long been convinced that the next civil war will be caused by the media. This definitely helps my case.
posted by Melismata at 8:50 AM on May 30 [15 favorites]
Once upon a time, I performed an extensive and snarky analysis of the ratings of The Apprentice. Bottom line: It debuted and was seated for its first season between Friends and ER. It had good ratings because anything given that spot would be a top 10 show, including the forgettable Boston Commons and Fired Up.
posted by dances_with_sneetches at 8:53 AM on May 30 [16 favorites]
posted by dances_with_sneetches at 8:53 AM on May 30 [16 favorites]
I have long been convinced that the next civil war will be caused by the media.
Given how central media ownership and manipulation has been to the rise of the far right, I think that’s an easy call.
posted by Thorzdad at 9:01 AM on May 30 [12 favorites]
Given how central media ownership and manipulation has been to the rise of the far right, I think that’s an easy call.
posted by Thorzdad at 9:01 AM on May 30 [12 favorites]
Ugh, fuck this guy, fuck Trump, fuck this show. Pieces of shit enabling pieces of shit, ain't no excuse for it.
posted by GoblinHoney at 9:14 AM on May 30 [11 favorites]
posted by GoblinHoney at 9:14 AM on May 30 [11 favorites]
"Remember the Maine!"
posted by clew at 9:14 AM on May 30 [3 favorites]
posted by clew at 9:14 AM on May 30 [3 favorites]
Assuming the raw video footage exists somewhere. Would be a shame for that to fall into the wrong hands. Huge shame.
I'm currently reading Rogues: True Stories of Grifters, Killers, Rebels, and Crooks, a compendium of magazine long-reads from the excellent investigative journalist Patrick Raden Keefe. This is the chapger on How Mark Burnett Resurrected Donald Trump as an Icon of American Success, which is about the creation of the ridiculous Apprentice show that somehow got people believing the guy wasn't just a laughingstock carnival barker.
posted by mcstayinskool at 9:25 AM on May 30 [8 favorites]
I'm currently reading Rogues: True Stories of Grifters, Killers, Rebels, and Crooks, a compendium of magazine long-reads from the excellent investigative journalist Patrick Raden Keefe. This is the chapger on How Mark Burnett Resurrected Donald Trump as an Icon of American Success, which is about the creation of the ridiculous Apprentice show that somehow got people believing the guy wasn't just a laughingstock carnival barker.
posted by mcstayinskool at 9:25 AM on May 30 [8 favorites]
Without a doubt, the hardest decisions we faced in postproduction were how to edit together sequences involving Trump. We needed him to sound sharp, dignified, and clear on what he was looking for and not as if he was yelling at people.
See, Trump was a bigly great president, he just needed better editors.
posted by chavenet at 9:31 AM on May 30 [2 favorites]
See, Trump was a bigly great president, he just needed better editors.
posted by chavenet at 9:31 AM on May 30 [2 favorites]
Already seeing a lot of commentary online about how this will just encourage TFG's followers to start using the N-word in public
Let them keep pulling their "polite" masks off. Let people see them for what they really are.
posted by Abehammerb Lincoln at 9:34 AM on May 30 [2 favorites]
Let them keep pulling their "polite" masks off. Let people see them for what they really are.
posted by Abehammerb Lincoln at 9:34 AM on May 30 [2 favorites]
Let them keep pulling their "polite" masks off. Let people see them for what they really are.
It's been nine years of escalating white supremacist violence. Who is confused, still, as to "what they really are"?
posted by Pope Guilty at 9:46 AM on May 30 [35 favorites]
It's been nine years of escalating white supremacist violence. Who is confused, still, as to "what they really are"?
posted by Pope Guilty at 9:46 AM on May 30 [35 favorites]
I have long been convinced that the next civil war will be caused by the media. This definitely helps my case
Holup, we need to go ask some random people in a diner in Iowa what that they think.
posted by azpenguin at 9:52 AM on May 30 [6 favorites]
Holup, we need to go ask some random people in a diner in Iowa what that they think.
posted by azpenguin at 9:52 AM on May 30 [6 favorites]
Iowa? That’s miles away from New York. Pennsylvania is a much better source of vibes within driving distance of Manhattan.
posted by migurski at 9:55 AM on May 30 [4 favorites]
posted by migurski at 9:55 AM on May 30 [4 favorites]
Yeah, I can’t imagine anybody for whom this is the last straw. Not just in a statistical sense, although that too, for sure, but in a psychological sense. I can’t build a theory of mind for somebody of voting age who would be swayed away from Trump by this (non)news.
posted by gauche at 9:57 AM on May 30 [2 favorites]
posted by gauche at 9:57 AM on May 30 [2 favorites]
Too much recapping, not enough new revelations. I think a better writer could have made this less about how the show was put together and more about Trump being racist, sexist, spoon-fed and confused on set.
posted by subdee at 10:11 AM on May 30 [6 favorites]
posted by subdee at 10:11 AM on May 30 [6 favorites]
I agree this is kind of a weak article. There were no surprises for anyone who has been paying attention. It's basically a confirmation that Trump, while working on the show, behaved exactly as we have seen him do for the past 8 years now. I don't know that it's a bad thing to have that confirmation, but it's not revelatory. I guess it's kind of like the journalism equivalent of a study that replicates and confirms another study.
posted by Well I never at 10:54 AM on May 30 [4 favorites]
posted by Well I never at 10:54 AM on May 30 [4 favorites]
Whoever came up with "reality television" needs to be strapped to a yacht and sailed to the Iberian coast where the orcas are playing.
posted by tommasz at 10:56 AM on May 30 [12 favorites]
posted by tommasz at 10:56 AM on May 30 [12 favorites]
Let them keep pulling their "polite" masks off. Let people see them for what they really are.
There's a cost to this strategy, in the form of the people he's targeting having to hear it, and having to deal with the concomitant rise in real-life episodes of words and actions against marginalized people and their allies.
posted by Well I never at 10:56 AM on May 30 [8 favorites]
There's a cost to this strategy, in the form of the people he's targeting having to hear it, and having to deal with the concomitant rise in real-life episodes of words and actions against marginalized people and their allies.
posted by Well I never at 10:56 AM on May 30 [8 favorites]
I enjoyed the article; not so much for any revelations about Trump (the information was new but completely in keeping with his other behavior over the years) but for the behind the scenes, detailed look at how the show constructed its own reality. I knew this was the case for TV shows (I had some friends on Ricki Lake way back when and learned a bit about how the reality TV business operates), but this went into some depth. I was particularly intrigued with how Trump got the producers to improve his vacant or shabby real estate for him.
posted by TedW at 11:12 AM on May 30 [3 favorites]
posted by TedW at 11:12 AM on May 30 [3 favorites]
I never watched the show, and the one time it was on in a doctor's waiting room, I was thoroughly disgusted having to listen to that crap the orange buffoon was spewing.
Trump is a miserable excuse for a human, Pruitt's not much better; they'll both wallow in shit and do anything for money and self-gratification. Pruitt's article was all about being paid to pander to the lowest common denominator. We need to just ignore Trump's crap. He wants the spot-light. Why do we keep on giving it to him?
posted by BlueHorse at 11:49 AM on May 30
Trump is a miserable excuse for a human, Pruitt's not much better; they'll both wallow in shit and do anything for money and self-gratification. Pruitt's article was all about being paid to pander to the lowest common denominator. We need to just ignore Trump's crap. He wants the spot-light. Why do we keep on giving it to him?
posted by BlueHorse at 11:49 AM on May 30
> Already seeing a lot of commentary online about how this will just encourage TFG's followers to [redacted]
It's too late to yell "don't give them good ideas free of charge and then repeat them loudly until they get the memo", but I regardless wish that oracular predictions about bad behavior weren't so freely handed on a platter to those that would hurt us with them.
posted by Callisto Prime at 11:51 AM on May 30 [2 favorites]
It's too late to yell "don't give them good ideas free of charge and then repeat them loudly until they get the memo", but I regardless wish that oracular predictions about bad behavior weren't so freely handed on a platter to those that would hurt us with them.
posted by Callisto Prime at 11:51 AM on May 30 [2 favorites]
This would have been an important article eight years ago.
posted by stevis23 at 11:53 AM on May 30 [10 favorites]
posted by stevis23 at 11:53 AM on May 30 [10 favorites]
Casual racism and misogyny from the guy may not surprise readers here, but there are voters out there who don’t seem to understand what he is. In particular he’s polling inexplicably well with Black voters: A ‘Laundry List’ or a ‘Feel’: Biden and Trump’s Clashing Appeals to Black Voters (New York Times gift link / archive link).
posted by Songdog at 11:58 AM on May 30 [2 favorites]
posted by Songdog at 11:58 AM on May 30 [2 favorites]
BTW, it's hard for me to read the name of the producer Bienstock and not think of Max Bialystock from The Producers. I guess The Apprentice is thematically related to Springtime for Hitler.
posted by dances_with_sneetches at 11:58 AM on May 30 [11 favorites]
posted by dances_with_sneetches at 11:58 AM on May 30 [11 favorites]
I don’t want to give the impression that I think Black voters are uninformed. On the contrary, I think they’re paying attention to what’s important to them.
But if there are still people who don’t see the man — and there are, clearly — then I think some harsh realities can use more daylight shone upon them.
posted by Songdog at 12:10 PM on May 30
But if there are still people who don’t see the man — and there are, clearly — then I think some harsh realities can use more daylight shone upon them.
posted by Songdog at 12:10 PM on May 30
Already seeing a lot of commentary online about how this will just encourage TFG's followers to start using the N-word in public.
This assumes they're not already doing so.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 12:13 PM on May 30 [4 favorites]
This assumes they're not already doing so.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 12:13 PM on May 30 [4 favorites]
There's a cost to this strategy...
If you've spent any time with racists, the thing that keeps them contained is cowardice. They need to feel safe among their fellow travelers to be able to really let loose. The bigger cost here is that Trump's openness gives them a sense of safety. Now they know who their people are, and they're everywhere. Once they hit a critical mass, it's almost impossible to put them back in the box.
posted by klanawa at 12:13 PM on May 30 [7 favorites]
If you've spent any time with racists, the thing that keeps them contained is cowardice. They need to feel safe among their fellow travelers to be able to really let loose. The bigger cost here is that Trump's openness gives them a sense of safety. Now they know who their people are, and they're everywhere. Once they hit a critical mass, it's almost impossible to put them back in the box.
posted by klanawa at 12:13 PM on May 30 [7 favorites]
> (Trump drops an N-bomb.)
> 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. (Bienstock and Kepcher didn’t respond to requests for comment.)
God I fuckin' feel this. Flashbacks to working at Spumco when John K was openly abusing an underage woman and me and my fellow Bill & Ted's Excellent Generation kids just kind of... needed this foothold in the animation industry and... yeah. The show must go on, and you just kinda bury this shit. Now you know on an intimate, personal level something about how the entertainment sausage is made. Maybe after a little while you leave the industry, that's what I did. Maybe you stick around. Maybe if you stick around you even try to make sure anything you've got any power in running never goes that bad - I know one of my Spumco friends tried hard to do that throughout his career, maybe Pruitt did too.
Whenever you think back on it, you wish you had the guts to just walk out. But you didn't. You were young and all the older people on the crew were acting like this was normal, so... it was... okay? maybe? It sure didn't feel okay. Welcome to Hollywood, you just lost a piece of your soul.
posted by egypturnash at 12:23 PM on May 30 [20 favorites]
> 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. (Bienstock and Kepcher didn’t respond to requests for comment.)
God I fuckin' feel this. Flashbacks to working at Spumco when John K was openly abusing an underage woman and me and my fellow Bill & Ted's Excellent Generation kids just kind of... needed this foothold in the animation industry and... yeah. The show must go on, and you just kinda bury this shit. Now you know on an intimate, personal level something about how the entertainment sausage is made. Maybe after a little while you leave the industry, that's what I did. Maybe you stick around. Maybe if you stick around you even try to make sure anything you've got any power in running never goes that bad - I know one of my Spumco friends tried hard to do that throughout his career, maybe Pruitt did too.
Whenever you think back on it, you wish you had the guts to just walk out. But you didn't. You were young and all the older people on the crew were acting like this was normal, so... it was... okay? maybe? It sure didn't feel okay. Welcome to Hollywood, you just lost a piece of your soul.
posted by egypturnash at 12:23 PM on May 30 [20 favorites]
In 2015 I found it on youtube and watched all the episodes available while at work. First because I was curious about Omarosa, and then for the usual ogling-at-a-carwreck reasons anybody watches reality TV. It was a good choice for background noise while doing mindless tasks because it's so repetitive you don't really need to pay attention. I found it curiously horrifying. The Apprentice is unmatched in its capacity to repulse. Far, far more viscerally unpleasant than its precursor, the also nauseating Survivor.
In addition to his brand new publication credit, the producer guy also is on an associated Slate podcast episode about The Apprentice. Toward the end of the episode, the host asks him why he stuck with The Apprentice even though he knew it was a uncontrolled river of steaming excrement, and he had some nauseating yack about what a great timeless story it is, people doing anything they can to get ahead, American dream moneymoneymoneyMONEY yabberyabbergoldtoiletyabber. Then she asks whether he'd do it again and he says No, O no, I could not for it was wrong. Well, A., you knew it was wrong after the first episode, so you're clearly full of shit, and B., Mister two thousand and late, why pipe up now? We all know Trump screamed racial slurs directly into multiple cameras for multiple years and was a rapey POS one hundred percent of the time the cameras were on him and we all know those outtake tapes exist somewhere, and we've known everything you just said since before he was elected; you have zero new to add; and nothing you say at this point matters. It will probably make things worse.
The time to do something was when you first noticed that the show was pernicious. That show didn't make Trump, it made Trump an audience and a constituency. The show said: "Look! Look what a trashfire this is and nobody ever gets in trouble for any of it, wheeeeee! Looks like it's okay to be an unapologetic racist rapist, all!" It will not be news to a single Trump voter that he's proudly racist and misogynistic.
posted by Don Pepino at 12:46 PM on May 30 [6 favorites]
In addition to his brand new publication credit, the producer guy also is on an associated Slate podcast episode about The Apprentice. Toward the end of the episode, the host asks him why he stuck with The Apprentice even though he knew it was a uncontrolled river of steaming excrement, and he had some nauseating yack about what a great timeless story it is, people doing anything they can to get ahead, American dream moneymoneymoneyMONEY yabberyabbergoldtoiletyabber. Then she asks whether he'd do it again and he says No, O no, I could not for it was wrong. Well, A., you knew it was wrong after the first episode, so you're clearly full of shit, and B., Mister two thousand and late, why pipe up now? We all know Trump screamed racial slurs directly into multiple cameras for multiple years and was a rapey POS one hundred percent of the time the cameras were on him and we all know those outtake tapes exist somewhere, and we've known everything you just said since before he was elected; you have zero new to add; and nothing you say at this point matters. It will probably make things worse.
The time to do something was when you first noticed that the show was pernicious. That show didn't make Trump, it made Trump an audience and a constituency. The show said: "Look! Look what a trashfire this is and nobody ever gets in trouble for any of it, wheeeeee! Looks like it's okay to be an unapologetic racist rapist, all!" It will not be news to a single Trump voter that he's proudly racist and misogynistic.
posted by Don Pepino at 12:46 PM on May 30 [6 favorites]
A small datapoint for the argument that tv is crucial to understanding Trump.
posted by doctornemo at 12:51 PM on May 30
posted by doctornemo at 12:51 PM on May 30
why pipe up now?
It was only now that his NDA expired.
posted by Melismata at 12:53 PM on May 30 [5 favorites]
It was only now that his NDA expired.
posted by Melismata at 12:53 PM on May 30 [5 favorites]
Happy NDA expiration, Mr. Pruitt! Now that you've written this piece for Slate ["20 million unique visitors a month," per press kit], perhaps condense it for USA Today [est. 123 million readers per month], have your people chat up AARP mag, & suffer through several MI/PA/GA media interviews? Create an account at Allrecipes [est. 50 million+ monthly users] to post your fantastic crudité dip inspired by the Apprentice's craft-services team; studded with several TV insider asides in the directions to entice readers to see what you're up to now. Just sayin'.
Wonder if his NDA was bog-standard for the show, and more people will be inclined (or scouted) to reminisce.
posted by Iris Gambol at 12:55 PM on May 30 [7 favorites]
Wonder if his NDA was bog-standard for the show, and more people will be inclined (or scouted) to reminisce.
posted by Iris Gambol at 12:55 PM on May 30 [7 favorites]
If you held your nose and tolerated terrible abuses at work, then you might think about never telling anyone about it. Because you failed in the worst way a person can. And you should feel shame until the day you die.
posted by mattgriffin at 1:04 PM on May 30 [1 favorite]
posted by mattgriffin at 1:04 PM on May 30 [1 favorite]
Well, it is fine to get a clear confirmation, but we've all known this for ages, including the Trumpers. The article linked by mcstayinskool is very good and from 2018. Here's tragicomic quote about the contestant Trump was talking about.
posted by mumimor at 1:09 PM on May 30 [2 favorites]
A standout contestant in Season 1 was Kwame Jackson, a young African-American man with an M.B.A. from Harvard, who had worked at Goldman Sachs. Jackson told me that he did the show not out of any desire for Trump’s tutelage but because he regarded the prospect of a nationally televised business competition as “a great platform” for career advancement. “At Goldman, I was in private-wealth management, so Trump was not, by any stretch, the most financially successful person I’d ever met or managed,” Jackson told me. He was quietly amused when other contestants swooned over Trump’s deal-making prowess or his elevated tastes—when they exclaimed, on tours of tacky Trump properties, “Oh, my God, this is so rich—this is, like, really rich!” Fran Lebowitz once remarked that Trump is “a poor person’s idea of a rich person,” and Jackson was struck, when the show aired, by the extent to which Americans fell for the ruse. “Main Street America saw all those glittery things, the helicopter and the gold-plated sinks, and saw the most successful person in the universe,” he recalled. “The people I knew in the world of high finance understood that it was all a joke.”The one thing I find sort of interesting is that Mark Burnett seems to have avoided the Trump curse: that everything Trump touches turns into shit, including the entire Republican Party, the American judiciary, the economy, his own economy and of course the US response to the pandemic. I mean, Burnett is shit already, but he hasn't lost everything and gone to jail like so many others among Trumps allies.
posted by mumimor at 1:09 PM on May 30 [2 favorites]
As the article points out, the stuff that they edited out is the stuff that you can hear Trump saying now at any given Trump rally.
posted by clawsoon at 1:53 PM on May 30 [2 favorites]
posted by clawsoon at 1:53 PM on May 30 [2 favorites]
As has happened before, none of this will make any difference to Trump supporters. The guy whose house I have to pass when I go to the grocery store has had a Trump 2024 sign up since 2020. Yesterday it was changed to a Trump Wanted sign with a pic of a menacing looking Trump (it's cool Trump is being tried and even better if he's convicted). Nothing matters.
posted by bluesky43 at 2:01 PM on May 30
posted by bluesky43 at 2:01 PM on May 30
Maybe being a convicted felon will help move the needle a little bit.
posted by TedW at 2:31 PM on May 30
posted by TedW at 2:31 PM on May 30
As has happened before, none of this will make any difference to Trump supporters.
And he doesn't have enough supporters to win (case in point - there's a reason he spoke at the Libertarian Party convention, as much of a train wreck as that was.) Which means he needs the votes of aligned voters, whose support is softer - and a felony conviction is the sort of thing that will cut into that support.
Cynicism is not wisdom, no matter how much it cosplays as such.
posted by NoxAeternum at 2:54 PM on May 30 [4 favorites]
And he doesn't have enough supporters to win (case in point - there's a reason he spoke at the Libertarian Party convention, as much of a train wreck as that was.) Which means he needs the votes of aligned voters, whose support is softer - and a felony conviction is the sort of thing that will cut into that support.
Cynicism is not wisdom, no matter how much it cosplays as such.
posted by NoxAeternum at 2:54 PM on May 30 [4 favorites]
Maybe being a convicted felon will help move the needle a little bit.
His base (about 20% of the population) won't change. Real change will only come from the media - as soon as they start ignoring him the gig will be up and he will wither.
I'm not hopeful, though.
posted by Jessica Savitch's Coke Spoon at 2:54 PM on May 30 [1 favorite]
His base (about 20% of the population) won't change. Real change will only come from the media - as soon as they start ignoring him the gig will be up and he will wither.
I'm not hopeful, though.
posted by Jessica Savitch's Coke Spoon at 2:54 PM on May 30 [1 favorite]
So, I have two sets of thoughts on this.
(One)
The first is that the main story here isn't "Donald Trump is racist." He is, of course, and very obviously so, and that shouldn't be allowed to be forgotten or excused, but news-wise it is not a major new revelation at this point. His attitudes are clearly deducible from his behavior. Be that as it may, though, credible but unconfirmed rumors have long circulated that tape existed of Trump using racial slurs on the set of The Apprentice - I remember them being a constant point of speculation in the 2016 election threads. The new angle in this story is confirmation that a conservative media mogul assisted Trump in the 2016 election by withholding (at that time) newsworthy footage of a presidential candidate and silencing individuals who might have wanted to divulge the behavior, compelling their silence through the threat of punitive enforcement of the non-disclosure agreements they had signed.
The real stories here should be (a) under what circumstances should the law allow NDAs to prevent disclosure of information when concealment of that information is clearly contrary to public interest, and (b) how did the powerful television producer who concealed this information benefit, directly or indirectly, from Trump's presidency?
(Two)
My second set of thoughts contradicts my first set, at least a bit. Above I wrote that "news-wise, it is not a major new revelation" that Trump is racist and really, it isn't, except.. understanding of what it means to be racist varies pretty widely in American society. There are many contrarians who, asked to explain a behavior that has racially biased outcomes, insist that we can't really know whether it was racist without an unambiguously clear signal that it was. (Take, for example, recent Supreme Court jurisprudence over voting rights cases, which seem to take it as a given that unless the parties explicltly state a racist motive that no such motive can be proven even when an action affects some races disproportionately more than others.) Anyway - I'm sure we've all got a neighbor or a cousin or an employer or an associate justice who dismissingly tells us "you just think everything's racist.." while twisting themselves into a pretzel to come up with other motivations for disparately impactful behavior. We can (and generally do) doubt the good faith of such parties but one of the few lines many of them seem unwilling to cross is defense of those who are actually explicit in their use of racial slurs. That being the case, there are at least a small number of defenders of Trump who will not want to follow him across that line. To the extent such a tape would move anyone, it is that small sliver of racism defenders who are unwilling to go all-in on the N-word and similar slurs.
I still think the NDA angle and the media mogul who concealed this information to influence the outcome of the election are more important factors. But in any case, unless tapes actually surface I expect this will all vanish from the news cycle in under 48 hours. There's just too much else going on, however much it might behoove us to examine the role of wealthy media execs in influencing our elections.
posted by Nerd of the North at 4:12 PM on May 30 [4 favorites]
(One)
The first is that the main story here isn't "Donald Trump is racist." He is, of course, and very obviously so, and that shouldn't be allowed to be forgotten or excused, but news-wise it is not a major new revelation at this point. His attitudes are clearly deducible from his behavior. Be that as it may, though, credible but unconfirmed rumors have long circulated that tape existed of Trump using racial slurs on the set of The Apprentice - I remember them being a constant point of speculation in the 2016 election threads. The new angle in this story is confirmation that a conservative media mogul assisted Trump in the 2016 election by withholding (at that time) newsworthy footage of a presidential candidate and silencing individuals who might have wanted to divulge the behavior, compelling their silence through the threat of punitive enforcement of the non-disclosure agreements they had signed.
The real stories here should be (a) under what circumstances should the law allow NDAs to prevent disclosure of information when concealment of that information is clearly contrary to public interest, and (b) how did the powerful television producer who concealed this information benefit, directly or indirectly, from Trump's presidency?
(Two)
My second set of thoughts contradicts my first set, at least a bit. Above I wrote that "news-wise, it is not a major new revelation" that Trump is racist and really, it isn't, except.. understanding of what it means to be racist varies pretty widely in American society. There are many contrarians who, asked to explain a behavior that has racially biased outcomes, insist that we can't really know whether it was racist without an unambiguously clear signal that it was. (Take, for example, recent Supreme Court jurisprudence over voting rights cases, which seem to take it as a given that unless the parties explicltly state a racist motive that no such motive can be proven even when an action affects some races disproportionately more than others.) Anyway - I'm sure we've all got a neighbor or a cousin or an employer or an associate justice who dismissingly tells us "you just think everything's racist.." while twisting themselves into a pretzel to come up with other motivations for disparately impactful behavior. We can (and generally do) doubt the good faith of such parties but one of the few lines many of them seem unwilling to cross is defense of those who are actually explicit in their use of racial slurs. That being the case, there are at least a small number of defenders of Trump who will not want to follow him across that line. To the extent such a tape would move anyone, it is that small sliver of racism defenders who are unwilling to go all-in on the N-word and similar slurs.
I still think the NDA angle and the media mogul who concealed this information to influence the outcome of the election are more important factors. But in any case, unless tapes actually surface I expect this will all vanish from the news cycle in under 48 hours. There's just too much else going on, however much it might behoove us to examine the role of wealthy media execs in influencing our elections.
posted by Nerd of the North at 4:12 PM on May 30 [4 favorites]
So my class (2004) through middle and high school seemed to be the last one teachers wanted to teach before they retired. So every year, 1-2 of my teachers were checked-out already since they were done after us. For my honors Economics class my senior year, the teacher was retiring and literally all we did was either play his home-made stock market game, and watch the fucking Apprentice.
Thank fucking god that this was my last class for the day and my school had a rule that you only had to be present for 30 mins to be counted present, because I left after 30 minutes every single class (made a B!) and never had to watch the Apprentice! ugh
posted by LizBoBiz at 7:44 PM on May 30 [4 favorites]
Thank fucking god that this was my last class for the day and my school had a rule that you only had to be present for 30 mins to be counted present, because I left after 30 minutes every single class (made a B!) and never had to watch the Apprentice! ugh
posted by LizBoBiz at 7:44 PM on May 30 [4 favorites]
Here's a tape of Trump's political team in 2016 trying to work out how to spin Omarosa's claim that Trump used the n-word while on The Apprentice. (From Crooks and Liars)
posted by dances_with_sneetches at 8:31 AM on May 31
posted by dances_with_sneetches at 8:31 AM on May 31
> It's been nine years of escalating white supremacist violence. Who is confused, still, as to "what they really are"?
Far too many. Some are feigning stupidity, but some aren't.
posted by Happy Monkey at 11:26 AM on May 31 [1 favorite]
Far too many. Some are feigning stupidity, but some aren't.
posted by Happy Monkey at 11:26 AM on May 31 [1 favorite]
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posted by Melismata at 8:23 AM on May 30 [15 favorites]