"Apprentice" Producers Speak Out About Donald Trump g== And Their Stories Might Surprise You

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By David Robb

Donald Trump isn’t what he appears to be. On camera, he’s brash and
disrespectful, a pompous ass whose defiant demeanor and bullying
behavior have put all of the Republican presidential candidates on
their heels. He insults people – everyone from Sen. John McCain and
rival Jeb Bush to Fox’s Megyn Kelly and Univision’s Jorge Ramos and the
entire population of Mexico – and he plays fast and loose with the
facts.

celebrityapprenticeI thought that the best way to get a sense of the
bombastic billionaire would be to hear from the people who worked in
the trenches with him on The Apprentice, and was surprised to discover
that when the cameras aren’t rolling, he’s respectful and kind to
everyone he meets — though facts don’t seem to matter much then either.

I contacted dozens of the show’s former producers, and while most
declined to talk about the former reality TV star — and only one would
talk on the record — a picture of the Man Who Would Be President has
emerged that isn’t anything at all like what we see on TV. Which is not
surprising, because very few things ever really are.

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A few years ago, while on location in Los Angeles, two Apprentice
producers were going over the day’s shoot, talking as they hurried to
the set, when they saw Trump coming toward them. As he approached, they
made eye contact with the billionaire and held out their hands to greet
him, but Trump kept walking as if they weren’t even there. “We looked
at each other and we were pretty shocked,” one of the producers
recalled. “We had started to put out our hands to say hello to him and
he just looked through us and kept walking. We both felt it was kind of
funny. This had been a hard shoot, and it was an opportunity for him to
say, ‘Hello and thanks for the work,’ but he literally looked right
through us. I’ve worked on many, many shows, and you are all members of
the team, cast and crew. But not Trump. The fact that this guy is
running for president, I feel no way. He is a typical politician. He’ll
only talk to you if he needs something from you. If he doesn’t, he
won’t.”That snub, however, appears to be out of character. Another
producer told me Trump is not the kind of man to snub anyone.

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“That’s surprising,” he said. “I didn’t find him that way at all. He’s
a people person. Maybe it was inadvertent. I read that he doesn’t like
to shake hands, so when I first met him, I didn’t Donald Trump
Celebrity Apprenticestick my hand out, but he stuck his hand out to
shake mine. But I guarantee now that he’s shaking a lot of hands on the
campaign trail, there’s always a ton of Purell nearby.”

“I can’t say anything bad about the guy because he was always nice to
me,” he said. “To be honest, he really was nice. On TV, he looks like a
posh, fancy guy, but when the cameras are off, he’s a regular guy. He
is like an everyman.”

The producer said that while Trump appears to be a hot-head on TV,
prone to lashing out against any perceived slight, in real life he’s
anything but. “He is a nice, calm guy. I never saw him get angry, and
he’s respectful to women, across the board.”

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After a party at Trump’s ridiculously lavish Manhattan
apartment/mansion, where the late Yankees owner George Steinbrenner was
a guest, the producer came away feeling that Trump’s gaudy lifestyle is
just part of the act. “I found him to be more of a guy’s guy than all
that bullsh*t gold-plated opulence. He’s a P.T. Barnum. He’s the No. 1
self-promoter in the world.”

And a world-class bullsh*tter, on or off camera. “He used to make up
facts and figures about the show, based on nothing, just coming out of
his ass,” the producer laughed. “If we were fifth in the ratings, we
were the No. 1 show in the history of shows. He would cater his stories
to his agenda. If he wanted people to think it was the No. 1 hit show,
he would say it was whether it was true or not.”

The producer added: “I wouldn’t vote for the guy because I’m a
Democrat. I don’t want him to be president, but I like him. He’s nice.
I think he has a chance of getting nominated, but I don’t think he
Donald Trump GOP Debatehas a chance of winning. He’s too out-there with
the Tea Party and the rabid conservatives. You can’t win with the rabid
conservatives. He’s alienating a crazy amount of people. He says all
this stuff about Mexicans, and then he says he’s going to get the
Hispanic vote, that he’s going to build a wall on the border and that
he’s going to make the Mexicans pay for the wall, and that they will
‘love’ paying for it. He says he’s going into Iraq and take all the
oil. How’s that going to happen? He says these crazy things that have
no basis in fact, and yet, a lot of people believe it. People love
somebody who will say what’s on his mind. I hope he runs as a third-
party candidate, because that would be a done deal for the Democrats.”

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During taping of The Apprentice, “Trump is all business,” said another
producer. “The guy shows up, he looks at everybody and says: ‘You got
two minutes. It’s going to be a million dollars a minute after that.’
You shoot it, and after two minutes, he walks out. You always get
limited time with the guy. He’s there to do the job and get out of
there. He wants to know what to do, where to stand, shoot it and he’s
out of there and into his limo.”

Said another producer, “Everybody has a Donald Trump story.” But of the
show’s many producers, few are willing to tell them – at least not on
the record. One who is, producer Matthew Bartley, worked on the show
for 12 seasons. “What you see is what you get,” he said. “He’s a very
nice fella. He was always kind and generous to me. I don’t have a bad
word to say about the man.”


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In the War on Women, Hillary fought an entire platoon of sexually
abused females on behalf of Bill.