Donald Trump once discussed the possibility of producing a season of The Apprentice that pitted people against each other based on their race.
“There was a concept thrown out by some person — nine blacks against nine whites,” Trump said to Howard Stern in 2005 audio obtained by CNN. “And it would be nine blacks against nine whites, all highly educated, very smart, strong, beautiful people, right? … Do you like it?”
“Yes,” Stern replied. “I like it.”
The now 72-year-old added: “It would be the highest rated show on television.”
Before Trump ran for and subsequently became president in 2016, he produced and hosted The Apprentice for 14 seasons.
Later on in the audio, Stern, now 64, asked if the series would be made up of “very dark blacks or light-skinned blacks,” to which Trump replied, “[an] assortment” and added that there would be “probably nine” blondes on the show.
“Wouldn’t that set off a racial war in this country?” the radio host asked.
“I don’t think — see, actually I don’t think it would,” Trump explained. “I think that it would be handled very beautifully by me.”
The audio of Trump and Stern resurfaced after the commander in chief made headlines when former contestants Omarosa Manigault and magician Penn Jillette accused him of making racist comments in the past. Sarah Huckabee Sanders denied Manigault’s claims in her book Unhinged: An Insider’s Account of the Trump White House, that Trump used the N-word on the set of The Apprentice.
Trump, meanwhile, tweeted on Tuesday ,“When you give a crazed, crying lowlife a break, and give her a job at the White House, I guess it just didn’t work out. Good work by General [John] Kelly for quickly firing that dog!”
