Former President Donald Trump talked about the importance of high ratings and how they allow people on TV to be in newly released audio from an interview he gave at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Florida, in November 2023.
The presumptive GOP presidential nominee addressed the idea of returning to NBC on which hed previously hosted the business reality show The Apprentice, where each week he fired a contestant in one of six conversations with Variety editor and author Ramin Setoodeh.
The exchanges formed the basis of Setoodehs book, Apprentice in Wonderland. MSNBC s Nicolle Wallace talked with Setoodeh and aired audio from his 2023 sitdown with Trump on Tuesday.
So, if I went back to NBC right now to do something, they would do anything I wanted to do, showbiz-wise. Im talking about, Trump told Setoodeh. Doing a show, anything I wanted to do right now, 100%.
Its because that business is all about one thing, ratings, he continued. If you have ratings, you can be the meanest, most horrible human being in the world.
Trump: It's all about the ratings. If you have ratings, you can be the meanest, most horrible human being in the world. There's only one thing that matters. You can be nice or you can be mean, you can be evil, you can be horrible. You can be crude or elegant. There's only one pic.twitter.com/izOmB3nwxw
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Trump","slug":"donald-trump","links":{"relativeLink":"topic/donald-trump","permalink":"https://action.news/topic/donald-trump","mobileWebLink":"https://action.news/topic/donald-trump"},"department":{"name":"Latest News","slug":"politics-news"},"section":{"title":"Politics","slug":"politics"},"topic":{"title":"Donald Trump","slug":"donald-trump","overridesSectionLabel":false},"url":"https://action.news/news/topic/donald-trump"},{"name":"2024 elections","slug":"2024-elections","links":{"relativeLink":"topic/2024-elections","permalink":"https://action.news/topic/2024-elections","mobileWebLink":"https://action.news/topic/2024-elections"},"department":{"name":"Latest News","slug":"politics-news"},"section":{"title":"Politics","slug":"politics"},"topic":{"title":"2024 Elections","slug":"2024-elections","overridesSectionLabel":false},"url":"https://action.news/news/topic/2024-elections"}],"isLiveblogLive":null,"isLiveblog":false,"cetUnit":"buzz_body","bodyAds":["\r\n\r\n","\r\n\r\n","\r\n\r\n"],"adCount":0},"isCollectionEmbed":false}">Trump: It's all about the ratings. If you have ratings, you can be the meanest, most horrible human being in the world. There's only one thing that matters. You can be nice or you can be mean, you can be evil, you can be horrible. You can be crude or elegant. There's only one pic.twitter.com/izOmB3nwxw
Biden-Harris HQ (@BidenHQ) July 2, 2024
Theres only one thing that matters: ratings, Trump added. You can be nice, or you can be mean. You can be evil. You can be horrible. You can be crude or elegant. Theres only one thing that matters and thats ratings, and if you dont have ratings, it doesnt matter.
Trumps comment, an echo of his infamous grab em boast , cut to the very core of who he really actually is, said Wallace. That the word elegant is in his vocabulary is the part that I can never unhear, she added.
Trump appeared to suggest he was being wooed to return to TV even though I found no evidence of that, Setoodeh told Wallace.
Thats the TV star in him, Setoodeh explained. He wants people to see him as a TV star. A successful TV star and thats the philosophy and way in which he views the world and the way he governs if you could call it governing.
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In previous interviews promoting his book, Setoodeh recalled Trumps severe memory issues , including one time when the former president appeared to believe he still had official powers.
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