Trump shows relaxed side
He strikes softer pose in person
NEW YORK — There is something Donald Trump says he doesn’t know.
Trump has welcomed a reporter to his 26th-floor corner office in Trump Tower to talk about All-Star Celebrity Apprentice. And here in person, this one-of-a-kind TV star, billionaire businessman, ubiquitous brand mogul and media maestro strikes a softer pose than he has typically practised in his decades on public display.
Relaxed behind a broad desk whose mirror sheen is mostly hidden by stacks of paper that suggest work is actually done there, Trump is pleasant, even chummy, with a my-time-is-your-time easiness greeting his guest.
He even contradicts his status as a legendary know-it-all with this surprising admission: There’s a corner of the universe he doesn’t understand.
The ratings woes of NBC, which airs his show, are on Trump’s mind at the moment, and as he hastens to voice confidence in the network’s powers-that-be (“They will absolutely get it right”), he marvels at the mysteries of the entertainment world.
“If I buy a great piece of real estate and do the right building, I’m really gonna have a success,” he says.
“It may be more successful or less successful, but you can sort of predict how it’s gonna do. But show business is like trial and error! It’s amazing!”
He loves to recall the iffy prospects for The Apprentice when it debuted in January 2004. With showbiz, he declares, “You never know what’s gonna happen.”
Except, of course, when you do.
“I do have an instinct,” he confides. “Often times, I’ll see shows go on and I’ll say, ‘That show will never make it,’ and I’m always right. And I understand talent. Does anybody ask me? No. But if they did, I would be doing them a big service. I know what people want.”
So maybe he does know it all. In any case, lots of people wanted The Apprentice.
In its first season, it averaged nearly 21 million viewers each week.
And it gave Trump a signature TV platform that clinched his image as corporate royalty.
The two-hour premiere of All-Star Celebrity Apprentice (Sunday) starts by rallying its 14 veteran contenders in the even more evocative setting of the 2,000-year-old Egyptian Temple of Dendur at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
There, grandly, Trump receives such returning players as Gary Busey, Stephen Baldwin, LaToya Jackson and reality TV mean queen Omarosa.
“I HAVE BEEN ASKED BY VIRTUALLY EVERY NETWORK ON TELEVISION TO DO A SHOW FOR THEM.” DONALD TRUMP
This is the 13th edition of the Apprentice franchise, which has now slipped to less than one-third its original viewership, according to Nielsen Co. figures. But even an audience matching last season’s 6.26 million viewers would be pleasant news for NBC, which has recently fallen to fifth place in prime time, behind even Spanishlanguage Univision.
“I could probably do another show when I don’t enjoy The Apprentice anymore,” says the 66-year-old Trump, mulling his TV future. “I have been asked by virtually every network on television to do a show for them. But there’s something to sticking with what you have: This is a good formula. It works.”
No one has ever accused Trump of hiding his light under a bushel. But his promotional drive (or naked craving for attention) has taken him to extremes that conventional wisdom warns against: saying and doing things that might hurt your bottom line. Item: Trump’s noisy, even race-baiting challenge to President Barack Obama to prove his American citizenship. This crusade has earned Trump the title from one editorialist as “birther blowhard.”
For an industrialist and entertainer, where’s the profit in voicing political views that could tick off a segment of your market or your audience?
“It’s a great question, and a hard question to answer, because you happen to be right,” Trump begins. “The fact is, some people love me, and some people the-opposite-of-love me, because of what I do and because of what I say. But I’m a very truthful person.”
But isn’t he being divisive with some of his pronouncements?
“I think ‘divisive’ would be a fair word in some cases, not in all cases,” he replies. “But I think ‘truthful’ is another word.”
The publicity he got from his political activism reached a fever pitch during his months-long, media-blitzed flirtation with running for president that seemed conveniently to dovetail with the Spring 2011 season of his TV show.
That May, he announced he would not run. For some, it was the final scene of nothing more than political theatrics.
“They weren’t,” Trump says quietly.
“I was very seriously considering running. It was a race that the Republicans should have won.”
Last summer saw the opening in Aberdeen, Scotland, of Trump International Golf Links after a bitter, yearslong fight waged by environmentalists and local residents against government leaders and, of course, Trump.
A man for whom it seems no publicity is bad publicity, Trump insists the controversy helped the project.
“If there wasn’t controversy surrounding it, I don’t think anybody would even know it exists,” he says, laying out the alternative: “I could take an ad: ‘Golf course opening.”’
Trump even seems to profit from the harsh attention focused on his hair.
“I get killed on my hair!” he says, with no trace of remorse. But he wants everyone to know, “It’s not a wig!” Nor is it an elaborately engineered coif to hide a hairline in retreat, as many Trump watchers imagine.
To prove it, Trump does a remarkable thing: He lifts the flaxen locks that flop above his forehead to reveal, plain as day, a normal hairline.
“I wash my hair, I comb it, I set it and I spray it,” he says. “That’s it. I could comb it back and I’d look OK. But I’ve combed it this way for my whole life. It’s become almost a trademark.”