An 'unprepared' Trump often fired Apprentice contestants who were doing well, showrunners say

(Image credit: Frazer Harrison/Getty Images)

published 28 December 2018

Without The Apprentice, there would likely be no President Trump. And without Mark Burnett, there would be no Apprentice.

Burnett was the show's executive producer for its entire 14-season run, turning the "floundering D-lister" that was Trump into "the ultimate titan," The New Yorker documents in a new profile. Beneath the surface, showrunners knew Trump "was a fake," Apprentice editor Jonathan Braun said. But it was "our job ... to make it seem otherwise," Braun added.

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When this happened, Braun said, the editors were often obliged to "reverse engineer" the episode, scouring hundreds of hours of footage to emphasize the few moments when the exemplary candidate might have slipped up, in an attempt to assemble an artificial version of history in which Trump's shoot-from-the-hip decision made sense. During the making of The Apprentice, Burnett conceded that the stories were constructed in this way, saying, "We know each week who has been fired, and, therefore, you're editing in reverse." [The New Yorker]

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Kathryn is a graduate of Syracuse University, with degrees in magazine journalism and information technology, along with hours to earn another degree after working at SU's independent paper The Daily Orange. She's currently recovering from a horse addiction while living in New York City, and likes to share her extremely dry sense of humor on Twitter.

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