Politics
Why Trump has (several) good reasons not to want people to see ‘The Apprentice’
Given former President Donald Trump’s litigious nature, it was hardly a surprise the former president would greet a movie devoted to his formative years as a real-estate mogul with threats of legal action against “blatantly false assertions from these pretend filmmakers,” as Trump campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung noted in May. Despite that customarily aggressive claim, I’d argue the Republican presidential nominee does have good reasons to not want people to see “The Apprentice,” which arrives in movie theaters this week.
It was hardly a surprise the former president would greet a movie devoted to his formative years as a real-estate mogul with threats of legal action.
The film’s most shocking and visceral scene depicts the fictional Trump raping his then-wife Ivana, which the real Trump and Ivana deny happened (more on this below). It’s a moment likely to dominate the conversation. But in terms of understanding what makes Trump tick, and his often-casual relationship with facts, the rest of the film is unflattering in timely and pointedly significant ways.
Written by journalist Gabriel Sherman, and directed by Ali Abbasi (whose credits include the film “Border” and episodes of HBO’s “The Last of Us”), the film mostly centers on Trump’s pivotal relationship with Roy Cohn, the red-baiting attorney whose tutelage provides the title with a double meaning, given the TV show that forged and gilded Trump’s image. “The Apprentice” introduces the young Trump character (played by Sebastian Stan) as he seeks to escape the shadow of his domineering father, gradually doing so with considerable help from Cohn, portrayed with over-the-top gusto by “Succession’s” Jeremy Strong.
Cohn spots Trump across a crowded, posh club and takes him under his wing, helping him first with a lawsuit involving allegations of discriminatory renting practices at his rundown apartment buildings, and later with his ambitious development plans in New York.
“You’re the client, but you work for me,” the imperious Cohn tells him. “That means you do what I say, when I say it.”
As presented in the film, Cohn — who was basically a mob lawyer at the time — will do anything to win, up to and including bullying and blackmailing city officials. What “The Apprentice” really captures, though, is how Trump learned from Cohn, adopting and internalizing his rules of public combat: “1. Attack, attack, attack. 2. Admit nothing, deny everything. 3. No matter what happens, you claim victory, and never admit defeat.”
Although “The Apprentice” takes the usual dramatic liberties in adapting a fact-based story to the screen, a lot of the broad strokes have been chronicled in earlier projects like the 2019 documentary “Where’s My Roy Cohn?” The title quotes Trump during his time in the White House, with author Michael Wolff reporting that he would occasionally ask aloud “Where’s my Roy Cohn,” frustrated by his inability to find lawyers who would represent him in the bare-knuckled manner that Cohn did.
As is so often the case (and any “Star Wars” fan can recognize), the apprentice eventually became the master. And Cohn’s fading health due to AIDS turns him into one of the many people Trump uses and discards on his climb to the top.
While far from humble when he meets Cohn, Trump is still developing his trademark swagger. Cohn is shown squiring Trump around and introducing him to all the right people, including Andy Warhol, Yankees owner George Steinbrenner, political operative Roger Stone and publishing mogul Rupert Murdoch (“Rupert is gonna be key for you,” Cohn tells him).
Apart from Cohn, the film also explores Trump’s relationship with first wife Ivana, whom he aggressively pursues, marries and eventually grows tired of. Their deteriorating relationship culminates in the brutal encounter she cited in a deposition related to their divorce, which, as The New Yorker detailedshe first sought to clarify, then later disavowed as a story “without merit.” (Ivana is portrayed by Maria Bakalova, who first gained attention for her role in the “Borat” sequel and her hotel-room interaction with Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani.)
Trump’s campaign has dismissed “The Apprentice” as “pure fiction” and “malicious defamation.”
Trump’s campaign has dismissed “The Apprentice” as “pure fiction” and “malicious defamation.” Still, any studious observer of Trump can see how its broad underpinnings ring true, particularly Cohn’s counsel to claim victory no matter what, and his declarations “There is no ‘Truth,’ with a capital T” and “Truth is a malleable thing.”
Trump’s behavior in public life, certainly over the last decade, reinforces how he took those lessons to heart. When the truth doesn’t matter, lying becomes not just a strategy but a kind of protective armor.
“The Apprentice” is, in that sense, the oldest of origin stories, where the mentor discovers the hard way how well he accomplished his task.
Brian Lowry is a media columnist and critic, most recently at BLN, and before that Variety and the Los Angeles Times.
President Donald Trump is blaming fellow Republicans as his endorsed candidate, Ken Paxton, appears to be in a fierce struggle for a Senate seat in Texas with Democratic challenger James Talarico in a state the GOP has long taken for granted.
Trump, in a lengthy post to Truth Social Thursday, singled out longtime Republican strategist Karl Rove and Sen. John Cornyn, the incumbent who failed to secure the president’s endorsement in a heated primary.
Rove and Cornyn, Trump said, are doing “everything possible” to make it harder for Paxton to defeat Talarico, a state lawmaker and Presbyterian seminarian who is making a suprisingly strong run for Senate in deep red Texas.
“They are hurting Texas and, more importantly, hurting the United States of America!” Trump wrote. “If Ken Paxton loses, it will be because of WEAK and INEFFECTIVE Political Hacks like John Cornyn and Karl Rove, who have ineffectively opposed me for my entire political career.”
Cornyn, a longtime fixture in Texas politics, lost his bid for reelection in a contentious Republican primary in which he and his supporters portrayed Paxton as a deeply flawed candidate. As Election Day approaches, public polling over the past two months has shown Talarico with a narrow edge against Paxton, the state’s attorney general.
Trump urged his supporters to back Paxton.
“Your favorite President (ME!) is asking all of those who supported Senator John Cornyn to UNITE, and immediately switch your support to Ken Paxton,” Trump said. “He will be a Great Senator, just like he is a Great Attorney General. “
The race has also become one of the most expensive non-presidential battles. Talarico raised $64 million this summer — the largest third-quarter haul of any Senate candidate in history. He has raised more than $134 million since launching his campaign last year.
Paxton raised $18 million in the third quarter of 2026 and last month announced a new $20 million ad buy. Earlier this month, though, a Trump operative told POLITICO that MAGA Inc. and its affiliates are could spend nearly $45 million on direct mail, TV and digital advertising in Texas through Oct. 12.
Already, $235 million has been spent by outside conservative groups and party committees against Talarico as national Republicans scramble to boost Paxton.
Some Republicans have grown concerned that the cost of the Texas race is diverting money needed in other states and have expressed frustrations with Paxton after leaked audio showed him blaming Trump for his woes.
Trump easily won Texas in 2024, winning just over 56% of the vote. But concerns about Republicans’ chances this November have surged as the president’s approval rating plummets.
Former Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels said he thinks Vice President JD Vance and other Republicans are wrong to move away from the party’s traditional embrace of free-market economics — and that their shift could create an opening for a “pro-freedom” movement.
“I think they are in error,” Daniels said in an interview when asked about Vance’s criticism of economist Milton Friedman, who championed free-market capitalism.
“I think what Vance is saying is that there are aspects to the free market which can be disruptive of culture and tradition. I mean, that’s what the free market does. It’s dynamic,” he told Blue Light News. “It’s the only mechanism, in my view, for preserving the American dream, and that’s the most important element of our culture.”
The vice president’s intra-party critics have argued that Vance has been moving away from free-market economics and toward a larger role for the government in shaping the economy in his defense of the Trump administration’s economic policies, especially its wide-ranging tariffs.
“What the president is doing is changing 40 years of a failed bipartisan consensus in Washington, D.C., that has sold out American workers and destroyed the underlying economic strength of the United States of America,” Vance said in a Fox News interview last year.
The move is seen by some as Vance testing a more populist and protectionist message as he eyes the Republican presidential nomination in 2028.
But the two men were at one point closer politically. In Vance’s bestseller “Hillbilly Elegy,” Vance described Daniels as his “political hero.” Daniels has said that Vance sought his counsel on running for office in 2018 and Daniels advised against it because it was likely to be a bad year for Republicans.
The vice president’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Daniels’ remarks.
Daniels recently released his new book, “Impatience Is a Virtue.” In it, the veteran of Indiana politics — who also led the Office of Management and Budget under President George W. Bush — detailed his career championing the free market.
Daniels told Blue Light News that President Donald Trump was both a “symptom” and “a propellant” of voters’ discontent, pointing to their “feeling of being patronized, condescended, looked down on, ignored, disrespected.” And Trump’s political success came from his ability to unite and represent these discontented voters.
Still, Daniels argued the evolution of the Republican Party under Trump has created room for a “pro-freedom party” that champions economic freedom and individual autonomy.
“Whether that is the next iteration of this Republican Party or you find some other vehicle, I don’t know,” he said. “But I think that there’s a need, and as I say, there’s certainly, I think, a market for that viewpoint waiting to be expressed by somebody.”
The former governor, now back at Purdue University as the interim president after leading the school for a decade until 2022, sidestepped a question about his party identification and another one on whether he sees Vance emerging as the “pro-freedom” candidate.
“It’s all TBD; I don’t know,” he said of Vance.
Daniels also defended his view on another 2028 hopeful, Democrat Pete Buttigieg, who was the mayor of South Bend, Indiana, during the tail end of Daniels’ governorship.
In his book, Daniels said Buttigieg is smart, but his principal asset that excites Democratic activists is his sexual identity.
Buttigieg became the first openly gay person confirmed to be a Cabinet secretary when he was tapped to lead then-President Joe Biden’s Transportation Department. A spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
“This differentiates him in a way that would be appealing to large portions of the core Democratic electorate,” he said. “Absent that, he would be a less likely national figure.”
TALLAHASSEE, Florida — Two women this week sued former GOP Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz and two others — including a former state legislator — in federal court and accused the men of engaging in an alleged sex trafficking scheme during a time when Gaetz was still in Congress.
The lawsuit, which seeks damages from Gaetz and other defendants, was filed in Orlando by two women who were in their early 20s when they first met Gaetz. The women are not named in the lawsuit. The details mirror allegations that were at the center of a House Ethics Committee probe that found Gaetz had sex with a minor, solicited prostitutes and used illegal drugs.
“The defendants collectively used their public office, power, and wealth to prey on the economic vulnerability of the plaintiffs to commit the acts outlined below,” states the 38-page lawsuit.
That House probe helped derail Gaetz’s bid to become attorney general under President Donald Trump. He resigned from his Northwest Florida congressional seat to seek the post but decided to withdraw his name ahead of a potentially messy confirmation battle in the Senate.
Gaetz, who has repeatedly denied he ever had sex with a minor, said he would vigorously contest the allegations in the lawsuit.
“I look forward to taking the plaintiffs’ depositions because much of the conduct alleged against me is false,” Gaetz said in a text message. “The lawsuit relies almost exclusively on a Congressional committee report that didn’t allow me to confront my accusers. Now I will finally have that chance.”
The civil suit is the latest development in the long-running scandal involving Gaetz, a former ally of Trump who has continuously denied any involvement in underage sex or trafficking of women after news broke in 2021 that the Justice Department was investigating him.
The lawsuit this week by Jane Doe 1 and Jane Doe 2 was first reported by the Miami Herald. It alleges that Gaetz and former Seminole County Tax Collector Joel Greenberg “coordinated the recruitment, payments, drugs and travel to obtain commercial sex acts from young women.” The lawsuit includes former Florida legislator and lobbyist Chris Dorworth because his Central Florida home was the site of a party where he allegedly “participated in the activities alleged there.”
Greenberg is serving an 11-year federal sentence after he pleaded guilty to multiple federal offenses including underage sex trafficking of a minor and wire fraud. Greenberg cooperated with federal investigators who were probing Gaetz but the U.S. Department of Justice closed the investigation without filing charges.
The lawsuit says it “arises from the recruitment and sexual exploitation” that occurred from 2017 through January 2019 and included trips to various locations such as Las Vegas, New York City and the Bahamas. It accuses Gaetz and Greenberg of making promises to help the two women financially or with college bills.
“They led her to believe they would resolve her financial needs as long as she continued to perform sexual acts for them and their associates,” the lawsuit states about Jane Doe 1. “They used the age, wealth and political power gap between themselves and Jane Doe 1 to keep her compliant and silent.”
Jane Doe 2, the lawsuit states, was “paid less” than promised and “through this pattern defendants caused Jane Doe 2 to believe she would lose her education and serious financial harm if she stopped performing sexual acts.”
Stencer Kuvin, a West Palm Beach attorney representing the two women, said in an email that federal law designed to protect sex trafficking victims has a 10-year statute of limitations “which potentially could run [out] next year based upon the allegations in the complaint.”
Gaetz, a firebrand and ally of Trump, was once seen as a potential candidate for Florida governor or attorney general. Since he left Congress, he has hosted his own show on the One America News Network and he was appointed to the board of a nonprofit charged with distributing proceeds from a settlement Florida received after the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill along the Gulf Coast.
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