Donald Trump Insists: I Wasn’t Fired From ‘Celebrity Apprentice’ — I Quit!
Donald Trump, well known for his firm declarations of “You’re fired!”, wants to reassure everyone that he himself was not fired — from an iteration of the very show that turned ‘The Donald’s’ ‘You’re fired’ into a meme. It seems Trump’s Presidential candidacy announcement, in which he declared that Mexican immigrants were thieves, rapists, and drug pushers, is still getting blowback — and he disagrees that his Celebrity Apprentice position ended for that reason.
It’s been widely reported that Donald Trump was fired from Celebrity Apprentice due to his remarks, which many considered inappropriate and racially charged. USA Today reported in July that NBC had “fired” Trump, clarifying that, more specifically, NBC would no longer air Trump’s beauty pageants, and he would no longer be invited to host Celebrity Apprentice.
This week, though, NBC announced that Trump is officially fired as host. Trump posted on Facebook Thursday afternoon to dispute this.
“People don’t understand that I left The Apprentice to run for President- The Apprentice DID NOT leave me. Bob Greenblatt & folks at NBC were GREAT!”
He made no claims regarding NBC’s decision to no longer air Miss USA or Miss Universe pageants.
In fact, his rebuttal doesn’t conflict with NBC’s original statement at all — the network’s official statement declared that it would end business relationships with Trump, including both pageants, due to his derogatory statements, and referred to Celebrity Apprentice as a contract already completed:
“In addition, as Mr. Trump has already indicated, he will not be participating in The Apprentice on NBC because he has announced he’s running as a Republican candidate for president.
Now, he’s demanding that media outlets who report that NBC dropped him should issue retractions or corrections.
.@AP and @HuffingtonPost should change their fraudulent story to say THAT I DROPPED @NBC & The Apprentice to run for President!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 13, 2015
However, he hasn’t called for NBC‘s own news outlet to retract the same story.
The entire controversy quite closely resembles Donald Trump’s disagreement with Macy’s Department Stores — in which that company, too, released an official statement declaring that they were severing ties over Trump’s anti-immigrant statements. In that case, too, Trump declared that it was he who had decided to end the business relationship. He further went on to call for a boycott of Macy’s.
Though Donald Trump and NBC seem to agree that he initially left the show by choice, it appears that the network is one more he can add to the list of lost business relationships during this presidential run.
[Photo by: Bill Pugliano/Getty Images]
