Project Greenmail
Scenes you won't see on the new Donald Trump reality TV show.
Last weekend NBC held open casting calls for a new, "unscripted" reality show, The Apprentice. The lucky winner will earn a six-figure salary for watching Donald Trump go about his business.
Trump will probably regale The Apprentice—and television audiences—with tales of his conquests (both financial and carnal). After all, he hasn't been shy about detailing his exploits in Trump: The Art of the Deal, Trump: Surviving at the Top,and Trump: The Art of the Comeback. But The Donald's oeuvre has omitted some of his less towering achievements from print. And it's unlikely they'll see serious airtime on television.
However, an exclusive "Moneybox" investigation has uncovered storyboards for some Apprentice episodes that didn't quite make the cut. (Note to all parties concerned, including Mr. Trump, his lawyers, and NBC: While the historical events referred to occurred, all dialogue is fictional.)
Episode No. 15: How to win friends and influence analysts.
Trump (DT) and The Apprentice (TA) are having drinks at Whiskey Park. TA checks his Blackberry and sees that an analyst has issued a negative report on Trump bonds.
TA: "How should we respond?"
DT: "Let's get the guy fired."
TA: "Really, you can do that?"
DT: "Sure. Let me tell you about what happened back in 1990."
DT launches into a description of how Janney Montgomery Scott analyst Marvin Roffman issued a negative report on the bonds of the Trump Taj Mahal, the just-opened Atlantic City casino. Roffman predicted the casino could easily go bust. Trump produces a copy of the letter he wrote to Janney Montgomery Scott's CEO, calling for Roffman to be cashiered—or else a lawsuit would follow.
Daniel Gross is the Moneybox columnist for Slate and the business columnist for Newsweek. You can e-mail him at moneybox@slate.com and follow him on Twitter. His latest book, Dumb Money: How Our Greatest Financial Minds Bankrupted the Nation, has just been published in paperback.
Photograph of Donald Trump by Eric Liebowitz/© 2003 NBC, Inc.


