Donald Trump in an episode of The Celebrity Apprentice, an offshoot of The Apprentice.
Donald Trump in an episode of The Celebrity Apprentice, an offshoot of The Apprentice.
During the climatic boardroom meetings on the popular 2000s reality TV show The Apprentice, Donald J. Trump mastered the art of delivering one line: “You’re fired.”
The words have since leaped out of the sets built inside Trump Tower in New York to pounce on millions of federal workers across the US. America will be reminded how the show became a testing ground for politically toxic ideas as Amazon Prime Video
is making it available for the first time on a streaming service.
The reappearance of the show is being seen in some circles as Amazon founder Jeff Bezos’s way of cosying up to the Trump administration.
Besides making The Apprentice available to the American audience, Amazon announced in January that it would release a “behind the scenes” documentary about Melania Trump, the First Lady of the US. She will be an executive producer for the documentary. Amazon said at the time that it was “excited to share this truly unique story”.
Before Trump’s second term in the White House, Bezos did not get along with the man with the citrusy coloured hair. The Amazon founder said in 2016 that Trump was “eroding our democracy around the edges”.
The equation changed late last year. Bezos directed the newspaper he owns, The Washington Post, to retract from its endorsement of former Vice-President Kamala Harris during the presidential election.
In February, the paper’s owner said The Post’s opinion section would now advocate “personal liberties and free markets” and not publish opposing viewpoints on those topics.
On Monday, Ruth Marcus, a columnist and editor for The Post’s opinion section, resigned after four decades at the paper following “Will’s (Will Lewis, the paper’s publisher) decision to spike a column that I wrote expressing concern about the newly announced direction for the (opinion) section and declined to discuss the decision with me”.
The Apprentice was created by Emmy Award-winning producer Mark Burnett, who is also behind other hit shows like The Voice, Survivor and Shark Tank. Trump has appointed Burnett, credited with rehabilitating his image after it was tarnished by financial difficulties, as special envoy to Britain.
When filming for The Apprentice began in 2004, Trump was advised to let the drama play out between contestants who were battling for the grand prize of a one-year, $250,000 job by performing a series of tasks that Trump assigned. It was one of the few suggestions the host took seriously.
Before the show, Trump had lost his connection with primetime America and had a number of failed ventures to his name, from Trump Vodka to Trump: The Game. The Apprentice got viewers to believe in the Trump myth, and from a boardroom salesman he went on to become the Republican candidate for President in 2015.
That same year, NBC ended its business relationship with the real estate mogul after he made inflammatory remarks about Mexican immigrants.
Two weeks after the finale of the first season of The Apprentice, Trump hosted Saturday Night Live for the first time. His words still echo around the world: “Nobody’s bigger than me. Nobody’s better than me. I’m a ratings machine.”