Apprentice TV boss under fire in Trump row
British producer of reality show denies threatening $5m lawsuit over release of unaired Trump footage
THE British-born producer of the US series of Apprentice was under growing pressure last night to release unseen footage amid claims that it showed Donald Trump using the “N-word”.
Mark Burnett, 56, an evangelical Christian friend of the Republican presidential candidate, has resisted calls to show any out-takes featuring the billionaire on the reality television series, and indicated he will sue anyone who leaks them.
Mr Trump’s campaign was in crisis with a new poll showing him falling far behind Hillary Clinton, trailing 35 per cent to her 46 per cent. His support plummeted after a recording of him making lewd comments about sexually assaulting women emerged last week.
Paul Ryan, the most senior elected Republican official, last night all but conceded the White House to Mrs Clinton. He abandoned Mr Trump saying he could no longer defend him and would not campaign for him.
HILLARY CLINTON’S supporters are calling on her wealthy donors to pay the legal fees of anyone who leaks unaired footage from The Apprentice, after the British producer of the show reportedly told staff they could face a $5million (£4million) law suit if they released material damaging to Donald Trump. Last night he denied the allegation.
Chris Nee, an award-winning Irish-American producer, said she had heard rumours that Mr Trump was recorded using the N-word.
Mr Trump starred in The Apprentice from its inception in 2004, and for months former contestants have been queuing up to speak out about his offcamera behaviour. After the disclosure last week of 2005 footage in which Mr Trump bragged about sexual assault, the clamour to hear the unpublished tapes of The Apprentice has grown.
London-born Mark Burnett, a former paratrooper who served in the Falklands and is president of MGM Television, has resisted calls to release the archive. He has allegedly made former employees sign a $5 million bond not to leak the footage. On Twitter, people were calling on Clinton backers, including Warren Buffett and businessman Mark Cuban – Mr Trump’s nemesis – to offer to pay the legal fees.
David Brock, who runs a media group that backs Mrs Clinton, said he would be willing to pay their fees. More than 20 former contestants, crew members, and editors have told AP that Mr Trump treated women on the show inappropriately, including talking about which contestants he would like to have sex with and rating them by breast size. “If there was a break in the conversation, he would then look at one of the female cast members, saying ‘you’re looking kind of hot today, I love that dress on you’, then he would turn to one of the male cast members and say ‘wouldn’t you sleep with her?’ and then everyone would laugh,” a former crew member, who spoke anonymously due to a nondisclosure agreement, told AP.
Mr Burnett last night denied threatening staff with legal action for releasing the tapes. “Despite reports to the contrary, Mark Burnett does not have the ability, nor the right, to release foot- age or other material from The Apprentice,” said MGM and Mr Burnett in a joint statement. “Various contractual and legal requirements also restrict MGM’s ability to release such material.”
The statement said that claims Mr Burnett threatened staff with legal action for releasing the material were “completely and unequivocally false”.
Yesterday, a video interview unearthed in New Zealand showed Mr Trump talking about his womanising image and saying it was fortunate he did not have to run for political office.
All of us who have fought elections know to our cost about leaked emails, embarrassing events in the past, and unfortunate statements we regret. Americans have littered their presidential campaigns and presidencies with comments they regretted, from Gerald Ford saying there was no Soviet domination of Eastern Europe in 1976, to Ronald Reagan joking about bombing Russia when he didn’t know the microphone was on, to George W Bush saying he had been “misunderestimated”.
Such moments have become a normal part of a vigorous campaign under intense pressure and scrutiny, and Donald Trump no doubt hopes that his filmed comments about how to treat women will be seen in that light. These, he says, were just “lockerroom banter”, and do not represent what he is really like. Of course, someone’s private comments do tell us a lot about their character – revealing in this case an arrogant and vulgar braggart of a man, totally lacking the dignity or demeanour to be head of state of one of the greatest nations on earth. And that’s even without taking any of his policies into account.
Some of the senior Republicans I have the most respect for, like Senator John McCain, have now indicated that this has been the last straw. But many others will stick with Trump, partly because they cannot bring themselves to help Hillary Clinton, and also because they regard his comments on women as just another of many “bumps in the road” to polling day rather than a fundamental problem.
Why the fuss, some will think. Isn’t this just politically correct hysteria when there are many other issues to worry about – and indeed Trump’s serious differences with his own vicepresidential running mate over how to handle Russia and Syria are being overlooked in this furore.
To me, the fuss is wholly justified, the scorn of McCain and others is completely merited, and the reason for that is simple. A great strategic prize for the 21st century is the full political, economic, and social empowerment of women; Conservatives should be at the forefront of achieving that; and it would be a major obstacle to doing so if a conservative leader of the free world not only had no understanding of the need for it but was an ingrained, old-fashioned, irredeemable misogynist to boot.
This is not some side issue, to be labelled “women’s rights” and put in a political box as if it is separate from everything else. It goes to the heart of what kind of world political leaders are trying to steer us towards over the coming decades. That should be a world in which, in practice as well as in theory, women have the same opportunities to lead, manage, earn, and live as they wish, as men.
My career in politics benefited enormously from the support, advice and inspiration of successful women. I was motivated at the beginning by Margaret Thatcher, whose election by Conservatives as leader was often treated as an aberration until this year we did it again. As foreign secretary most of my closest advisers were women. None of this is about being “diverse” for the sake of it. In all such cases, as leaders and as advisers, I have found the women I have worked with to be among the toughest and most effective operators in the business.
Handling foreign affairs, as I visited war-torn places like Darfur and Bosnia, I came across one of the great injustices of this planet: the evidence of deliberate mass rape without any penalties for the perpetrators when wars were over, or any focus on how to prevent armies from committing such crimes in the first place. Such crimes, which destroy lives, families and communities and make peace harder to achieve, are committed exclusively by men, and can only be tackled by changing the attitudes of men who are soldiers, commanders, prosecutors and political leaders.
This requires global leadership to teach people that the misuse of physical power against anyone who is vulnerable is not the attitude of a real man. And so, both my experiences of the most powerful women, sitting with Thatcher or Angela Merkel or Theresa May, and of meeting the most powerless women, who sit in a camp in the Congo being raped every time they collect firewood, have taught me the need and the value of treating women with complete respect and equality.
The empowerment of women has often been seen as a Left-wing issue, but there is no reason why that should be the case. Conservatives do not believe in equality of outcome, but we very much believe in equality of opportunity, and that cannot be secured without extending it to half of our society.
We also want economic efficiency and the full use of our resources: this too can only be fulfilled by releasing the talents of the whole population. Just as the world wars led to a massive increase in the employment of women, so the immense challenges of this century require the ingenuity and hard work of all who are able to provide them.
Conservatives also believe in doing what works well in practice, and all the evidence is that an enhanced or equal role for women works very well indeed. Companies that have brought more women on to their boards have not just met a political requirement: studies have shown they have also improved their performance. Peace talks that have involved leading women negotiators, like those that recently ended a decades-long conflict in the Philippines, have been successful. Developing countries that advance the status of women have the best chance of sustaining strong economies, controlling population growth, ensuring high-quality education and creating a stable society.
This strategic prize is therefore one to be encouraged by thinkers and leaders of the Right as well as the Left. It is part of any coherent vision of a stable and just world in this century. It is an utter tragedy that the candidate of the Right for the presidency of the United States shows no evidence that he can recognise, articulate, accept or even sympathise with such a vision.
That is why Trump’s videotaped rantings do matter. They tell us something about his views and character. But they also tell us that on this issue which demands great leadership, he could not possibly provide it.