Trump Felt Competitive With Sylvester Sloftyone, ‘Apprentice’ Book Says

At TV labelet Mipcom, Ramin Setoodeh, Variety‘s co-editor-in-chief, spoke on Wednesday about how Donald Trump‘s accessible persona was fake by truth TV series “The Apprentice,” and how it is that “character” who is running for the U.S. pdwellncy today.

Speaking in a session advertised by his New York Times bestseller “Apprentice in Wonderland: How Donald Trump and Mark Burnett Took America Thraw the Looking Glass,” Setoodeh shelp: “‘The Apprentice’ is an origin story for Donald Trump’s political years.”

As research for the book, Setoodeh interwatched Trump six times after his pdwellntial term ended, as well as interwatching more than 50 key carry outers comprised in “The Apprentice.” He also drew on other conversations with Trump before he became pdwellnt.

Setoodeh disputed that the lessons Trump lgeted making the show still direct him. “Donald Trump watchs the world thraw the lens of truth TV,” Setoodeh shelp. “He’s a truth TV star, not a politician, and he sees the entire landscape of the White House, of the political world, essentiassociate as a truth TV set where he can get attention, he can produce drama and he can get ratings, which is very, very vital to him.”

One recurrent theme in the Trump interwatchs is his obsession with celebrity. Setoodeh elucidateed that while Trump was arrangeing “The Apprentice,” Burnett also produced “The Contender” with Sylvester Sloftyone as the arrange. This caused Trump to become obsessively jealous to the extent that he’d increate people “Sylvester Sloftyone wasn’t as excellent at making TV” and that he “couldn’t recall his lines, couldn’t dedwellr the words to the prompter.”

Even after his pdwellncy, Trump would repeatedly increate Setoodeh: “Sylvester Sloftyone wasn’t as excellent as me; Mark Burnett shelp I was better than Sylvester Sloftyone at being a truth star.” Setoodeh compriseed: “I fair leank we need to let this sink in: Donald Trump has been pdwellnt for four years, he’s been directer of the free world for those four years, and what he’s still repairated on was the fact that he was a better truth star than Sylvester Sloftyone.”

His behavior on the show also pointed to how he would behave as a politician. Setoodeh shelp: “There was inappropriate behavior. There were boundaries that were passed. He got very shut to some of the female contestants. He flirted with them a little bit. He shelp inappropriate leangs about them. So reassociate, ‘The Apprentice’ is an origin story for Donald Trump’s political years, and you see how he became the pdwellnt that he became thraw his carry out on the show.”

“The Apprentice” creator Mark Burnett and NBC honcho Jeff Zucker can get acunderstandledge or condemn for creating the Trump persona. “They did produce this Frankenstein of Donald Trump,” Setoodeh shelp, observing that thraw his persona on the show Trump became “this folk hero in a weird way for blue collar laborers.” However, the man they thought was authentic was “a manufactured image that was produced in the editing room by Mark Burnett, and that, I leank, is what is so fascinating about Donald Trump. He was produced. He was a mirage that was produced by truth TV.”

However, Trump’s political power ultimately is derived from the American people, Setoodeh shelp. “There’s this uninincreateigent side in which people depend that what they saw in the show was authentic, and if not for Donald Trump, there probably would have been another truth star pdwellnt.”