Donald Trump isn’t ready to leave the world of reality television behind when he heads to Washington next month, via Variety:
Trump will remain an exec producer on NBC’s “Celebrity Apprentice,” which is returning Jan. 2 after a two-year hiatus with new host Arnold Schwarzenegger.
MGM confirmed to Variety that Trump has retained his EP credit on the series. … In the credit sequence, Trump’s name will air after that of “Apprentice” creator Mark Burnett and before Schwarzenegger, who is also an exec producer of the new incarnation along with Page Feldman and Eric Van Wagenen.
Trump Tower confirmed the news in a statement to the Hollywood Reporter. “Mr. Trump has a big stake in the show and conceived of it with Mark Burnett,” spokeswoman Hope Hicks said in a statement. “Additional details regarding his business interests will be shared December 15th.”
NBC made a big deal about cutting business ties with Trump back in 2015 after he launched his campaign with an anti-immigrant rant that became his mission statement. The network brass, it would seem, feels differently about being associated with xenophobic President-elect Trump than it did about being associated with xenophobic GOP candidate Trump.
The financial terms of the deal were not announced, but Variety reports that Trump’s per-episode fee is likely to be in “the low five-figures, at minimum,” and that it will be paid by way of MGM, which produces the show, and not NBC, which airs it. That, however, is a distinction without much difference, since Trump and the network’s financial interests will nonetheless be intertwined once again. Even if Trump were to donate his royalties from this season to charity—unlikely!—he’d still stand to benefit on the backend from franchise fees. Starting this January, what’s good for the Celebrity Apprentice will be good for Trump and good for NBC.
The network, of course, has a news division. NBC News infamously deferred to the network’s entertainment division over the Access Hollywood video, allowing it to get scooped by the Washington Post. Shortly after, Apprentice co-creator Mark Burnett faced pressure to release behind-the-scenes footage from his show, but ultimately did not citing legal concerns. At the time, Burnett spoke out against what he said was the “hatred, division, and misogyny” in Trump’s campaign. Now, he’s not only teaming back up with Trump on the new season, he’s also apparently giving the president-elect advice on how to stage his inauguration parade.
In the grand scheme of things, Trump’s reality-show royalties are small potatoes. The Trump family business empire will create far larger and more troubling conflicts of interest—both at home and abroad—than a TV credit ever could. But the simple fact that Trump is unwilling to give up this relatively small thing should make it clear that he’s never been serious about leaving his business outside the White House door.
