A number of minutes into Donald Trump’s darkish Madison Sq. Backyard rally speech on Sunday, the previous president fired up his MAGA loyalists with the signature phrase from his NBC actuality sequence The Apprentice. “Subsequent Tuesday, it’s important to rise up and it’s important to inform Kamala Harris that you simply’ve finished a horrible job,” Trump declared. “Kamala, you’re fired!” The gang’s thunderous response was yet one more reminder that The Apprentice stays central to Trump’s political attraction.
For former NBC chief advertising officer John Miller, this can be a supply of deep disgrace. His division created the advertorial fantasy of Trump’s enterprise prowess and promoted it to hundreds of thousands of People. The reality was that Trump went by means of a number of bankruptcies regardless of receiving a whole lot of hundreds of thousands of {dollars} of his father’s money. Miller believes that with out The Apprentice, Trump would by no means have been able to run for president. “He didn’t have an actual firm. It was principally a free assortment of LLCs. They’d been bankrupt 4 instances and twice extra after we had been filming the present. The Apprentice helped him survive that,” Miller instructed me. “Individuals thought he could be president as a result of I made him appear to be a respectable businessman.”
The specter of a second Trump administration motivated Miller to talk out. He wrote an op-ed for US Information and World Report revealed on October 16, titled “We Created a Monster,” that apologized for his position in turning Trump right into a actuality TV star. With every week to go earlier than the election, I spoke to Miller concerning the 14 years he spent working with Trump on The Apprentice, why he thinks Trump is a mendacity racist, and what he sees because the hazard of a second Trump time period. The dialog has been calmly edited for readability.
Self-importance Truthful: Let’s begin out speaking about the way you marketed The Apprentice.
John Miller: Initially, we leaned into the concept it was a present from Mark Burnett, the creator of Survivor. However after we noticed some early takes, we realized Trump was going to be an enormous character. So we created the title sequence with the theme music of the present, which was For the Love of Cash by the O’Jays. We shot the promos with Trump in his limousine, in his helicopter, in his jet, and at Trump Tower. We created the sense of an American royalty. We stored pounding that message again and again. I known as it “ruthless consistency.”
So that you offered a phony picture of him as a profitable businessman?
Yeah. Trump made Mark Burnett hire two flooring within the Trump Tower. One of many flooring was used to create a false entryway into Trump Tower. So while you got here out of the elevator, there was this huge fancy place and a receptionist that didn’t exist. After which one other a part of that flooring was the boardroom that was completely created to make it seem like it was an enormous, essential boardroom. As a result of Trump’s actual boardroom was shabby. You’d by no means consider it as a big-time businessman’s boardroom.
Why did you determine to talk out now?
After I retired in 2022, I began writing a guide known as How I Ruined American Tradition. And at a sure level, it was clear I wasn’t going to get the guide finished earlier than the election. So it wasn’t till two weeks in the past that I stated, I’ve to get a part of the story out, and if it kills the guide, so be it. What if my little story might imply the distinction of a tenth of a ranking level in three battleground states that might win the election for Harris?
