NBC Marketing Chief Admits The Apprentice Made Trump a “Monster”
The former head of marketing for NBC is apologizing for “creating a monster” in Donald Trump through the production of his reality TV show The Apprentice.John D. Miller wrote a column for U.S. News and World Report, published Wednesday, about how he helped to market Trump as “a super-successful businessman who lived like royalty,” creating “a false narrative by making him seem more successful than he was.” For example, Miller wrote, the boardroom that viewers saw was a set, because Trump’s actual boardroom was deemed to be in poor shape and too old to show on TV. Miller also wrote that more successful CEOs were too busy. According to a New York Times article from September, Jack Welch, Warren Buffett, and Richard Branson were also contacted by producers but didn’t make the cut due to a lack of time or the “necessary charisma.” Trump, unlike those other business leaders, “had plenty of time for filming, he loved the attention and it painted a positive picture of him that wasn’t true,” wrote Miller. Trump’s availability was due to the fact that, when the show first went to air in 2004, he wasn’t particularly busy: His business “empire” had been decimated by multiple bankruptcies, and he was no longer doing much at all. The show’s promotion would blanket NBC’s programming and create an exaggerated image of the real estate investor.“The image of Trump that we promoted was highly exaggerated. In its own way, it was ‘fake news’ that we spread over America like a heavy snowstorm,” Miller wrote. “I never imagined that the picture we painted of Trump as a successful businessman would help catapult him to the White House.” In his interactions with Trump, Miller found that he was both “manipulative, yet extraordinarily easy to manipulate,” foreshadowing his dealings with autocrats like Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong Un. He also noticed that Trump was thin-skinned and quick to seek retribution. Miller, who calls himself a “born-and-bred Republican,” closed his article by urging people to vote for Kamala Harris, saying that he and others “did irreparable harm by creating the false image of Trump as a successful leader. I deeply regret that. And I regret that it has taken me so long to go public.”Miller joins many others who worked with Trump, either in his business or the White House, who now regret their efforts and are urging people to vote against him.
The former head of marketing for NBC is apologizing for “creating a monster” in Donald Trump through the production of his reality TV show The Apprentice.
John D. Miller wrote a column for U.S. News and World Report, published Wednesday, about how he helped to market Trump as “a super-successful businessman who lived like royalty,” creating “a false narrative by making him seem more successful than he was.”
For example, Miller wrote, the boardroom that viewers saw was a set, because Trump’s actual boardroom was deemed to be in poor shape and too old to show on TV. Miller also wrote that more successful CEOs were too busy. According to a New York Times article from September, Jack Welch, Warren Buffett, and Richard Branson were also contacted by producers but didn’t make the cut due to a lack of time or the “necessary charisma.”
Trump, unlike those other business leaders, “had plenty of time for filming, he loved the attention and it painted a positive picture of him that wasn’t true,” wrote Miller. Trump’s availability was due to the fact that, when the show first went to air in 2004, he wasn’t particularly busy: His business “empire” had been decimated by multiple bankruptcies, and he was no longer doing much at all. The show’s promotion would blanket NBC’s programming and create an exaggerated image of the real estate investor.
“The image of Trump that we promoted was highly exaggerated. In its own way, it was ‘fake news’ that we spread over America like a heavy snowstorm,” Miller wrote. “I never imagined that the picture we painted of Trump as a successful businessman would help catapult him to the White House.”
In his interactions with Trump, Miller found that he was both “manipulative, yet extraordinarily easy to manipulate,” foreshadowing his dealings with autocrats like Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong Un. He also noticed that Trump was thin-skinned and quick to seek retribution.
Miller, who calls himself a “born-and-bred Republican,” closed his article by urging people to vote for Kamala Harris, saying that he and others “did irreparable harm by creating the false image of Trump as a successful leader. I deeply regret that. And I regret that it has taken me so long to go public.”
Miller joins many others who worked with Trump, either in his business or the White House, who now regret their efforts and are urging people to vote against him.
