What The Apprentice Might Predict About a Trump Presidency

We've already seen Donald Trump as the leader of a reality show. What does his boardroom behavior say about how he'd function as President?
quotThe Apprenticequot Season 6 Finale at The Hollywood Bowl
Donald Trump during "The Apprentice" Season 6 Finale at The Hollywood Bowl at Hollywood Bowl in Hollywood, California, United States. (Photo by Mathew Imaging/FilmMagic)FilmMagic

Here is a fact, stripped of all emotion: there is a nonzero chance that Donald J. Trump will be the next President of the United States. He's never held elected public office, so there's no obvious track record of how a Trump Administration might function, but there are many, many seasons of The Apprentice that offer glimpses into his decision-making and war-room demeanor. Throughout the series (which never won an Emmy, because The Amazing Race is a far superior series the system is rigged), Trump served as an imperious and sometimes impulsive reprimander-in-chief, pleading and interrupting his way through the show's end-of-episode boardroom scenes. In fact, those scenes give us a surprisingly clear look at a would-be president's decision-making process—so let's turn on the Extrapolatobot 7000 and look ahead to what those scenes tell us about a possible Trump presidency.

  • Omarosa is the epitome of a reality television villain: she pushes buttons and will manipulative anyone and everyone in order to progress further in a competition. But the one person who could knock her off her pivot was Piers Morgan, who simply belittled her status as a non-celebrity. Their conflict often escalated well beyond the boundaries of decency—yet Trump just sits and watches, seemingly with glee. ("I don't want this guy as my enemy," he chuckles about Morgan.) Would-be cabinet heads and advisors, take note: President Trump doesn't really care if you advisors get along. In fact, the entertainment value of a circus might just outweigh getting things, y'know, *done*.
  • In the second season of *The Apprentice*, the contestants were divided into male and female teams, each led by a member of the opposite sex. Bradford, the project manager for an all-female team, had immunity going into the boardroom in an early episode, but was so overconfident about his performance that he waived his protection—and was promptly fired by Trump. The Donald's rationale was as alpha-over-everything (and grammatically questionable) as you might have expected: “Bradford made a stupid, impulsive, life-threatening decision, that frankly if you were running a company, and made that kind of a decision, you destroy that company instantaneously.” If you don't take off the armor, in other words, you'll never lose. Granted, if there *is* a Trump Presidency, it would confirm the validity of that very belief, but if you think advantage and victory are the same thing, we'd like to introduce you to the Six-Day War.
  • In the show's fourth season, Trump was so taken aback by a team’s failure during a sales event that he fired four contestants in a single boardroom session. We have to admit, in a genre so beholden to well-work tropes—as in politics, reality TV is fond of the single-serving scapegoat—we found this break from convention refreshing. Sure, mass firings might create a personnel (or power) vacuum with catastrophic consequences, but it also sends a clear message to an tainted agency or office. That's a point in the "benefits of an inexperienced politician running the country" column!
  • At the end of the second season of *The Apprentice*, former high school national debate champion Andy Litinsky (the former conservative radio host and current Trump supporter who goes by Andy Dean) got ambushed in the board room by two female contestants. He couldn’t get a word in edge-wise, and that perceived weakness got him fired. Trump, in fact, was impressed by the famed rhetorical move known as "talking over everyone else and shouting your thoughts as loudly as possible." He employed it to great effect during the primaries, and though it didn't serve him well in the general election debates, he shows no sign of abandoning the tactic in the Oval Office. Ready your earplugs, West Wing staffers!
  • In the most recent season of *Celebrity Apprentice*, Vivica A. Fox and Kenya Moore argued in the boardroom over a stuttering Geraldo Rivera about whether Moore had stolen Fox’s phones and posted a disparaging tweet. “We’ve really reached a new low,” said Trump. (We'll wait while you finish laughing.) But even after his supremely ironic handwringing, he ultimately rules based not on the shady business practice, but on Kenya's performance in the challenge. In other words, don't worry about *how* someone puts numbers on the board, just that they do.
  • Bret Michaels tempted fate, returning to *Celebrity Apprentice* in its sixth season after winning the third season. The ploy backfired, with Trump ousting Michaels in the very first week instead of Brande Roderick, the losing team's manager, who managed to raise the most money in the show's history. Despite Trump’s misgivings over Roderick’s leadership (and a [ridiculously inappropriate line](http://www.vulture.com/2016/08/most-offensive-moments-from-the-apprentice.html) about her being on her knees), he made his decision based purely on her individual performance. In other words, if you're the Secretary of Interior, it's cool if all the national parks catch fire at the same time—just make sure you're out there attending fundraising dinners!
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