'Apprentice' producer says they 'struggled to make Trump seem coherent'

[left-of-center2012]

https://thehill.com/homenews/media/423142-apprentice-producer-says-they-struggled-to-make-trump-seem-coherent

A TV producer who oversaw the first five seasons of President Trump's former reality television show “The Apprentice” says those working behind the scenes often “struggled to make Trump seem coherent.”

“He wouldn’t (couldn't?) read a script — he stumbled over the words and got the enunciation all wrong,” Walker said.

Walker ... said NBC's "Apprentice" reinvigorated Trump's image as a successful businessman.

The lengthy piece in The New Yorker argues that Mark Burnett, the former executive producer of “The Apprentice," helped ... by ending a downward slope in his professional life and giving him the appearance of a tycoon. Burnett acknowledged the New York real estate mogul was at a low point in his career.

Walker added that Trump often spoke in a derogatory manner about women, frequently commenting on their bodies.

How Mark Burnett Resurrected Donald Trump as an Icon of American Success

[Eliot Rosewater]

1. His fans read this and they identify with his illiteracy and ignorance, they will love him more.

I am an atheist but if I wasnt I would wonder about the anti christ. The WORST he acts, the more HATE AND DEATH he brings, the more they WORSHIP him.

[msongs]

2. yes, those attributes are a bonus to them nt

[Demovictory9]

4. yes, they will say he's "plain spoken". they excuse all his faults.

[Crutchez_CuiBono]

6. "Counter-puncher' extraordinaire.

[3catwoman3]

38. Well, it is quite plain that he...

...is barely able to communicate.

[ProudLib72]

22. Wait just a minute, Elitot. Do you realize what you wrote?

His fans will read this and identify with his illiteracy.

I guess they might have someone in the family who is literate and can just give them the highlights.

[Eliot Rosewater]

34. LOL

[Initech]

24. Well just remember that Jesus himself said that the dark one shall pose as a creature of light.

And Trump is the dark one, and has convinced his followers that he is a creature of light, so....

[dalton99a]

28. +1. The Two Corinthians even said it

And no marvel, for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light.

[Initech]

29. Two Corinthians!!!

[Demovictory9]

3. I watched that show from the beginning. Trump was obnoxious but I assumed he really was a businessm

businessman. Now I know it was all smoke and mirrors. I blame apprentice for trump being president.

[TrishaJ]

5. But, but, but...

HER EMAILS!! BENGHAZI!!!!

[edhopper]

7. Trump supporter:

"He can't read, just like me! Time we got rid of those reading snobs in Gubbermint!"

[NastyRiffraff]

8. I love this part:

“I don’t want to have cameras all over my office, dealing with contractors, politicians, mobsters, and everyone else I have to deal with in my business. You know, mobsters don’t like, as they’re talking to me, having cameras all over the room. It would play well on television, but it doesn’t play well with them.”

(Emphasis added)

[salin]

9. I got about 2/3 through the New Yorker article

and was so disgusted and frustrated, I had to walk away.

Burnett is a piece of work. F him and the horse he rode in on.

[smirkymonkey]

13. Same here.

What a slimeball. Somehow, these people manage to find each other and bad things happen.

[salin]

14. Sadly, in this case, historically bad things.

Another couple of malignant forces finding each other and fucking up history: Roger Aisles and Rupert Murdoch.

[LiberalFighter]

19. Hopefully, Burnett and his wife both go down. They are both pos.

[TexasBushwhacker]

25. Worth noting there's no indication that Burnett was working LEGALLY in the US for 6 years as a nanny

because he married his first wife specifically to get a green card.

[obamanut2012]

42. He and his wife are ultra-conservative Opus Dei wingnuts

Who, in their Bible miniseries, had Satan look like Obama ON PURPOSE!

[Vinca]

10. And where, exactly, was this producer during the 2016 election????????

[appal_jack]

15. Yeah! A little late for "concern" now. k&r, nt

[GusBob]

11. Fuck Mark Burnette

Fuck so-called reality TV.

The reason I stopped watching television was Survivor

I thought that shit was a bad influence on our culture

Turns out I was right

[FakeNoose]

26. He got paid a LOT of money to keep quiet

Remember the leftover money that wasn't used for the inaugural celebrations? A lot of it went under the table to Mark Burnett as a payoff. He's the one who has those Apprentice out-takes and blooper reels that we keep hearing rumors about. We hear rumors but the tapes never show up anywhere, Burnett has them safely locked up, it would seem.

[rownesheck]

33. Yes!

Thank you! My thoughts exactly! So called "reality" tv makes me hulk out in anger! The fact that people watch that garbage makes me want to smash things! I believe the dumbing down of this country is due in large part to the poop that is plastered on the tv. There are people i know who get so excited about the new season of Big Brother! Seriously?! Years ago, these were some fairly intelligent people. Now, not so much. I gotta stop commenting now cuz i can feel the rage building inside me, and you wouldn't like me when I'm angry.

[spanone]

12. shut up asshole....too late

[WhiteTara]

16. How did they come to choose him for this show?

I've never heard how it got started. Whose idea was it, I wonder.

[Phentex]

17. It was Mark Burnett's...

he needed someone who represented a business person. That's all DT was perceived as at the time. And I watched a few seasons. He didn't really do very much. Just showed up at firing time, made a few comments and fired someone. Many times you could tell he knew nothing about what had gone on. He was just a blip.

[Dan]

21. I guess you can say that we are

Fortunate that BOZO the Clown is not on TV now, because one can almost anticipate the next GOP candidate for president.

[JI7]

23. yup, most real business people, especially the big names would never do the show

it would not be worth their time or anything else.

trump did it because he really isn't as wealthy as he claims.

[roody]

39. Blame anyone except those who voted for Trump.

I don't get it.

[kskiska]

20. Funny

"…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.”

[tulipsandroses]

27. "Reality" tv has been one of the worst things to happen to tv

I've been saying this for this for a long time now. For a few years it seemed as if that was all the programming on tv. All these fake reality tv shows. From my understanding, they were not real- most were scripted in some way. So Trump was basically get a script written to secure his future as president.

[not_the_one]

37. Didn't "reality tv" get started because of a writer's strike?

That is when producers saw "reality tv" as a really cheap replacement. So we got all the amateur talent shows, the housewives of wherever, the fake survival/race shows. With the exception of the talent shows, scripted trash talk and fake competitions, that have ZERO to do with "reality".

Hollywood has been laughing all the way to the bank, at the writer's unions' members... That'll teach them...

edit for grammar and spelling

[Raine]

43. It started before then, actually shows like "Queen for a Day" in the 40s & 50 were the beginning.

Then an American Family in 1973 but the later group became popular with Survivor and some others like The Bachelor, the Apprentice, Big Brother etc but that was BEFORE the writers strike. During the writers strike they really pumped out the reality shows like crazy, dozens of them on major networks and cable ones. (I was curious so I looked it up on google.)

[GoneOffShore]

30. I regret to say that we worked on the first series of 'The Apprentice'

And we continued to work for 'reality shows'.

I really hated them. All aspects of them. The reality of the shows is, as described in the first paragraph of the article, 'fascist television'.

[dalton99a]

31. Don't forget Mark Burnett has threatened to sue anyone who leaks footage of Trump saying the n word

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2016/10/is-there-apprentice-footage-of-donald-trump-saying-the-n-word.html

[moondust]

32. Thanks a lot, Dr. Frankenstein.

"the appearance of a tycoon"

Burnett knew it was fraud to pass the sleazebag loser off as some kind of supreme being whose place it was to sit in judgment of others, deciding "winners" and "losers," all without reminding the audience that it was just a fake TV show.

Burnett can go to Hell and stay there for his role in creating this monster that has been foisted upon the world.

[emulatorloo]

35. That New Yorker article was a great read, thanks for posting it

[Gothmog]

36. trump is erratic as the best of times

the producers of the Apprentice hid from us the fact that trump is a nut case

[3catwoman3]

40. "Did Burnett believe what he was selling?"

“Or was Trump another $2 T-shirt that he pawned off for $18?”

The answer to that question is pretty damn obvious.