Trump campaign says Donald Trump biopic The Apprentice will ‘not see the light of day’ in US
Trump campaign plans lawsuit against 'The Apprentice' biopic for false portrayal of President Donald Trump as a rapist.
A Trump campaign spokesman has lambasted Donald Trump's biopic ‘The Apprentice,’ which portrays the 45th president as a rapist and seeking to file a lawsuit against the makers.
“We will be filing a lawsuit to address the blatantly false assertions from these pretend filmmakers,” Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung told The New York Post.
“This garbage is pure fiction which sensationalizes lies that have been long debunked,” he added.
The Apprentice, which premiered at the Cannes Film Festival on Monday, claims to be inspired by true events, detailing Donald Trump’s ascent in New York high society during the 1970s and 1980s.
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Directed by Iranian-Danish filmmaker Ali Abbasi, the film includes a controversial scene in which Trump is depicted allegedly raping his late ex-wife, Ivana Trump.
Ivana Trump, who passed away in July 2022, alleged sexual assault in her 1989 divorce deposition, but she retracted the claim more than 25 years later. In a July 2015 statement released about a month after her ex-husband launched his first presidential campaign, Ivana stated, “The story is totally without merit.”
Trump campaign says the biopic is ‘pure malicious’
Cheung continued scathing the film, “This ‘film’ is pure malicious defamation, should not see the light of day, and doesn’t even deserve a place in the straight-to-DVD section of a bargain bin at a soon-to-be-closed discount movie store; it belongs in a dumpster fire.”
The Trump campaign adviser further argued that the film's release, less than six months before the 77-year-old former president is set to compete against President Biden in the upcoming election, constitutes “election interference.”
“As with the illegal Biden Trials, this is election interference by Hollywood elites, who know that President Trump will retake the White House and beat their candidate of choice because nothing they have done has worked,” Cheung told the NYP.
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The Apprentice stars Sebastian Stan as a young Donald Trump, Maria Bakalova as Ivana Trump, and ‘Succession’ star Jeremy Strong as Roy Cohn, Trump’s ruthless former lawyer and fixer.
The Apprentice has not yet secured US distribution rights
One of its investors, billionaire Dan Snyder, was reportedly “furious” with how it depicted the presumptive Republican nominee for president, according to Variety.
The former Washington Commanders owner apparently expected the movie to be a “flattering portrayal of the 45th president.”
