Kamala, You’re Fired! How Trump Went from Casinos and Reality TV to the White House
Whether or not they supported President-Elect Donald Trump in the 2024 elections, millions of people from all sides of the political spectrum have followed the presidential race closely on TV for months, with the climax being Trump’s landslide victory on Election Day.
The 2024 Presidential Election coverage provided some of the most shocking and fascinating TV moments ever produced, with battleground states being drawn red on the map one after the other in real time.
However, Donald John Trump is no stranger to being the focal point of shocking, fascinating TV. He became a movie actor and TV spectacle long before he was sworn in for his first term as president. In fact, Trump had a big part in shaping the reality TV genre as we know it today.
Trump’s policies on migration, foreign affairs, the economy, climate regulations, abortion, and many other topics earned him millions of votes and his second term in office. But unlike most former U.S. presidents, he did not build a lifelong career in politics.
So, did his previous place in the spotlight help him find his way into this position of power? Let’s take a look at Trump’s forming years in front of a camera.
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Donald Trump made a name for himself in the upper echelons of the business world by transforming his father’s real estate business and becoming an Atlantic City kingpin. He’s also had the support of numerous high-profile casino moguls funneling millions into his campaign.
However, many speculate that it was actually his stint as a reality TV star that gave him both the capital and the influence to run for President. After all, he’d filed for bankruptcy four times before The Apprentice started and declared it twice more while it aired.
The show’s own creators admit that the man who starred in the first episode of The Apprentice was a significant departure from the star he’d become when the show ended. We can’t say that if it wasn’t for The Apprentice, Trump would never have become the President of the United States.
But let’s take a closer look at “The Donald’s” rise to reality stardom and how it possibly helped him land his biggest role yet.
Pre-Apprentice Performances (1989-2004)
Trump’s role on The Apprentice hinged on his reputation as one of New York’s biggest and most successful business tycoons. But this job was far from a spur-of-the-moment decision based solely on his business ventures.
Rather, Trump had been planting the seeds of his reality TV career for years, cultivating his image as an entertainer with carefully crafted cameos on popular TV shows (and a few questionable movies).
Trump’s first foray into the acting world was a small cameo in Ghosts Can’t Do It, a 1989 dark comedy in which the protagonist must murder a rich older man so that her recently deceased husband can possess his body and they can get back to getting freaky.
Yes, this movie actually exists and yes, it did earn Trump a Golden Raspberry Award – or Razzie for short – for Worst Supporting Actor.
He was also nominated for Worst New Star, losing out to The Godfather III actress Sophia Coppola. But don’t feel too bad for the guy; he’d go on to win two more Razzies for Worst Actor and Worst Screen Combo in 2018.
Donald Trump’s notable role was in Home Alone 2: Lost in New York. During his brief seven-second appearance, Trump gave young Kevin Malone the simple direction to “turn left” (the only time in his career that the right-wing politician would do so) while inside the Trump-owned Plaza Tower.
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According to director Chris Columbus, Trump “bullied his way into the movie,” and the cameo was a condition of filming in the Plaza. In true Trump fashion, he vehemently denied the allegation on social media, claiming he was begged for a cameo and that it “helped make the movie a success.”
Ramping up his image as a tycoon-turned-entertainer, Trump made cameos on several popular TV shows and films over the next two decades, including The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air and The Little Rascals (1994), The Nanny (1996), Sex and the City (1999), Zoolander (2001), Two Weeks Notice (2002) and Days of our Lives (2005).
He even made several WWE appearances, including the “Battle of the Billionaires” in 2007, where Trump brawled with (and shaved the head of) Vince McMahon.
Though they’re almost always brief (and usually pretty awkward), the Don refused to let any opportunity go to waste. Fran Drescher, star of The Nanny, recalled in an interview with Seth Meyers how Trump requested a script change for his 45 seconds of air time.
Drescher’s original line was, “you millionaires are all alike.” After receiving a note from Trump’s assistant claiming, “Mr. Trump is not a millionaire; he’s a billionaire, and we’d like you to change the script,” Drescher changed the line to the more comedic “zillionaire.”
Similarly, his only line in Sex and the City – in which he turns to Miranda’s older suitor and says, “I’ve gotta go. But think about it. I’ll be at my office at Trump Tower” – was scripted by Trump himself. According to Page Six, the line was ad-libbed to give Trump Tower a mention.
No matter what, Trump’s character is usually portrayed in a similar fashion. From turning up to the Banks’ house with $1 million in cash in Fresh Prince to playing the villainous business tycoon father in The Little Rascals, he is never portrayed as anything other than a paradigm of wealth and success.
This is pretty ironic, considering he applied for five of his six Chapter 11 bankruptcies between 1991 and 2004.
The Apprentice (2004-2015)
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Trump’s IMDb page took a significant detour from cameos to starring roles after landing his job on The Apprentice. Before the first episode aired on January 8, 2004, Trump was famous within the business circles of New York.
But afterward, he rose to a different kind of fame – reality star.
The Apprentice was a new type of reality sensation. It gave viewers direct access to one of the greatest businessmen of their generation (at least that’s the impression they got of “The Donald.”)
Released the same year as House, Lost, and Desperate Housewives, and alongside season five of The Sopranos, it was hailed by critics as one of the best shows of the year.
The first episode, enticingly titled “Meet the Billionaire,” garnered 18 million viewers, and the show continued to attract around 20 million for the rest of the season. Of the 28 million viewers who tuned into the first season finale, 17.5 million were between the ages of 18-49.
Thanks to The Apprentice, an entire generation of viewers watched “The Donald” cosplaying as a wise, successful business baron for over a decade.
Donald Trump was known to be obsessed with using the show to control his image. He would call the channel after every new episode to find out the viewer figures and claim that he had the number one show on TV (despite the figures saying otherwise).
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He also demanded that every episode feature a shot of his private jet, claiming that “even if it doesn’t get the ratings, it’s still going to be great for my brand.”
Trump needn’t have worried about the show’s success. It’s reported that he earned around $214 million throughout the 14 seasons he featured on the show. This figure was supplemented by sponsorships as the show grew more popular, with many tasks focusing on specific brands or products.
That said, the Don almost quit after just three years, attempting to abandon the sinking ship before NBC could cancel when ratings hit an all-time low.
Alas, the producers figured things out, and the show continued to run for another seven years before the next big hitch: Trump’s first Presidential bid. The issue wasn’t that Trump was running for President. Rather, it was his comments about Mexican immigrants when he first announced his intention to run for President in June 2015.
In the same speech accusing Mexicans of being “rapists” and “bringing drugs” into the country, he coined his most famous phrase since The Apprentice: to “make America great again.” His deeply offensive comments proved to be the final straw for NBC, and Trump found himself booted from his own reality show.
How satisfying to picture “The Donald” hearing the words “you’re fired.”
Obviously, neither this controversy nor the dozens that followed had an impact on his campaign, and he was sworn into office as the 45th President of the United States on January 20, 2017.
An Unrealistic Reality
Trump’s TV and film appearances have always been about building his brand. It was true of his script changes in The Nanny and Sex and the City, and it was true of his decade-long stint on The Apprentice.
Even back in 1989, Trump knew exactly how to manipulate the media for his own personal gain, and it’s exactly this kind of foresight that allowed him to eventually run for, and subsequently win, the 45th Presidential election.
John Miller, the former Chief Marketing Officer at NBC, certainly believes this to be the case. Miller was responsible for crafting the Trump mythology, filming him in limousines and jets and generally giving the impression that he was an out-and-out success.
However, Miller claimed that had it not been for The Apprentice, Trump wouldn’t have run for President in 2016.
“He didn’t have a real company. It was basically a loose collection of LLCs,” Miller revealed in an interview with Vanity Fair. “They’d been bankrupt four times and twice more when we were filming the show. The Apprentice helped him survive that. People thought he would be a good president because I made him seem like a legitimate businessman.”
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The glitzy boardrooms, imposing entryway, and fancy reception shown on The Apprentice were, in fact, fake. The producers rented out entire floors of the Trump Tower within which they could create fake sets to replace the shabby and outdated boardrooms of the real Trump Tower.
Guest judge and CNN anchor Erin Burnett recently revealed that even his firings were fake. She says he so frequently chose the wrong person to fire that editors would have to go back and make the contestant look bad.
Miller’s mission to turn Trump into “American royalty” proved more successful than he could have ever predicted. In the years following The Apprentice, Donald Trump was the focus of countless TV series, books, and documentaries, his reality stardom finally giving him the media attention to rise from a lowly chorus girl to the leading role.
While his reality stardom was the catalyst for Trump’s climb to the presidency, it was the biggest blight of Miller’s career. The CMO recently apologized for his part in making Trump a reality star, writing op-eds in the weeks before the election that reveal what went on behind the scenes of the show and endorsing Kamala Harris.
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