Donald Trump is floating a lot of things in the dying days of his presidency, including wild and baseless conspiracy theories about massive voting fraud that didn’t simply happen. Lately, he’s reportedly even wondered if he just… stayed in the White House past his term ending, which would at least be a bit more interesting than his endless tweets about nothing of substance.
There are all kinds of rumblings about what Trump will do next once he leaves the White House for good, and apparently one of those things is to revive The Apprentice on NBC with Mark Burnett. According to the Daily Beast, Trump has openly pitched some close confidants in the White House about bringing the show back.
Among his inner orbit of family, political aides, and advisers, it is yet another sign that, despite the president’s public insistence that he won the 2020 election, he recognizes that he has lost and that his ongoing legal crusade to cancel Joe Biden’s victory will come up short.
In the past two weeks, the people familiar with the matter note, Trump has casually slipped into conversation lines such as, “How would you like to see The Apprentice come back?” and “Remember The Apprentice?”
It’s very funny to imagine Trump asking people around him if they “remember” the show that largely sparked the persona and popularity that led to him reaching the White House in the first place, like a former high school quarterback donning the letterman jacket to recall the good old days down at the local dive. But Trump floating these things in private usually leads to him test ballooning it on the endless campaign trail he’s also teased out running after the election, as he reportedly wants to rally his way to the 2024 campaign right away.
Working on The Apprentice in 2021 and beyond would obviously put him on a different path, but there’s some speculation that Burnett, who created the show, is also interested in teaming back up with Trump to make it happen.
Also unclear is to what extent Trump and Burnett have made contact this month. But Burnett has been talking up the prospect and has told associates he sees a revived Apprentice as a potential huge money spinner, according to a person familiar with his thinking.
“Mark’s an opportunist. Trump was his meal ticket before and he’s keen to bring the show back to life especially in the face of the disaster MGM has become,” the person said referring to Burnett’s rocky tenure as chairman of the MGM television group where he has overseen a string of flops including Netflix’s Messiah, The Contender on CBS, and ABC’s Funderdome.
The Daily Beast did point out that an anonymous spokesperson for Burnett said the prospect of a new Apprentice was “NOT TRUE zero discussions about TV,” there does seem to be some considerable smoke here. Whether NBC would actually want to put Trump back on the air after four controversial years in the White House isn’t certain, but Trump is clearly looking for his next gig and might think going back to his old TV personality ways is the best path forward.
[via The Daily Beast]