This Trump has been dumped. NBCUniversal released a statement on Monday, June 29, announcing that it was ending its relationship with entrepreneur Donald Trump after his controversial remarks about immigrants from Mexico incited widespread backlash last week.
"At NBC, respect and dignity for all people are cornerstones of our values," the statement to Us Weekly read. "Due to the recent derogatory statements by Donald Trump regarding immigrants, NBCUniversal is ending its business relationship with Mr. Trump."
This includes Trump's popular entertainment ventures with the network. "To that end, the annual Miss USA and Miss Universe Pageants, which are part of a joint venture between NBC and Trump, will no longer air on NBC," the network continued to Us. "In addition, as Mr. Trump has already indicated, he will not be participating in The Apprentice on NBC. Celebrity Apprentice is licensed from Mark Burnett's United Artists Media Group and that relationship will continue."
The 2016 presidential hopeful, 69, made the controversial remarks about immigrants earlier this month at a campaign kickoff event. "The U.S. has become a dumping ground for everybody else's problems," Trump said before the crowd. "When Mexico sends its people, they're not sending their best. They're not sending you… They're sending people that have lots of problems, and they're bringing those problems with us. They're bringing drugs. They're bringing crime. They're rapists. And some, I assume, are good people."
Trump was called out as "racist" and insensitive by critics, and the fallout continued. On June 25, Spanish-language network Univision announced that it was cutting Miss USA from its lineup after co-hosts Roselyn Sanchez and Cristian de la Fuente dropped out, in addition to scheduled performer J Balvin.
In an exclusive interview with Us Weekly last Friday, Trump remained resolute and unapologetic about his words. "There is nothing to apologize for," the mogul told Us. "Everything that I said is correct. People are flowing through the borders and we have no idea who they are, where they're coming from. They're not only coming from Mexico, they're coming from all over South America and the world."
He also seemed unconcerned about the co-hosts dropping out of Miss USA. "We'll get more people," he told Us. "We have many people that want to do this. We're just looking right now. We couldn't care less about those two hosts backing out. I never even heard of them quite frankly."
Amidst the loss of Miss USA and more, Trump's mission, meanwhile, remains clear. "They can do whatever they want." he told Us at the time. "I couldn't care less. All I'm doing is fighting for the United States. I'm not fighting for Mexico."
