When 'The Apprentice' Makers Had to Re-Edit Scenes to Make Trump Look Less of a 'Complete Moron'

New York Times journalist Russ Buettner and author Susanna Craig have co-authored and released a tell-all book titled Lucky Loser based on former president Donald Trump. The book chronicles the self-described billionaire who went on to become a politician, as well as his early years judging The Apprentice.  While appearing on CNN in an exclusive with Erin Burnett the authors confirmed that because Trump allegedly made poor decisions when terminating a reality show participant, producers had to re-edit the footage to lessen his portrayal as a "complete moron." 

As per The Wrap, Burnett inquired with Buettner and Craig, “I remember judging some of these tasks, you know,” she stated. “It was supposed to be who did the worst on the tasks. But that he sometimes would be so bad about his choice about who he fired that they’d have to go back and edit it to make that person look bad.” The authors provided an example of contender David Gould from the reality show and corroborated the story. “A lot of the producers thought he was going to win that whole series that season, he would just run the whole gauntlet,” Buettner said, “But Trump fired him on the very first episode. And people in the control room, the producers were like, ‘Oh my God, what do we do with this now?’” 

“But they had this other moment because it was entertainment, not reality. ‘Oh my gosh, this is really great because this is so unpredictable,’” Buettner continued. “So that quality that was really bad for him in business was solid gold on the show. And then they would just re-edit everything to make David Gould look [bad].” Craig also disclosed how Trump spent years strategizing media reports under the fictitious moniker "John Barron." Burnett agreed to it saying, “This is something I’ve been just fascinated by for years.” 

“This kind of alter ego bizarre thing,” the veteran journalist continued. “He would pretend to be a guy named John Barron. And he would do it when he was talking about affairs or about, you know, how rich he was. Because he wanted people to think he was richer than he was and get put on the Forbes list and all of these things. He pretended to be this guy, John Barron.”

Next, Burnett aired a snippet of a discussion in which Trump assumed the persona of 'John Barron.' “I mean, they didn’t even try to use a voice changer, which a 6-year-old would try to do,” Burnett said, Craig added, “He even named his son Barron… I don’t even want to go there.” 

 “We’ve always sort of wondered why John Barron, we went back to old newspapers and we found the name John Barron where there were classified ads where he would be selling things.” “And it went back to the exchange number for the Trump house. So it was Donald, he was using it as a pseudonym either because they wanted to hire a maintenance worker,” Craig concluded while narrating the origin of the moniker. “So it was just this crazy origin story of John Barron that we’ve always wondered where it came from. And we found it in the classified ads of old newspapers in New York. I mean, it is really incredible.”