Allen Salkin and Aaron Short, the authors of The Method to the Madness , appeared on MSNBC on Thursday to discuss their latest book and the controversy that has arisen following President Donald Trump’s racist attacks on Ilhan Omar and other progressive congresswomen, Raw Story reports.
Discussing the contents of their book, Salkin and Short said that they had interviewed Bill Pruitt, who worked as a producer on The Apprentice . According to the authors, Pruitt revealed to them that President Trump had been recorded using a racial slur on the set of the reality show.
According to the book, Trump used the N-word to refer to one of the contestants, Kwame Jackson.
“If you’re talking about racism today, if you want final, audible evidence that Trump is a racist, you can ask Bill Pruitt, who was named in our book, an Apprentice producer, who says on the record that Trump used the N-word backstage on a tape that you could probably get to explain his hiring decision on the first season of The Apprentice ,” Salkin said.
Furthermore, according to the author, the recording of Trump using the N-word to insult the contestant can be easily obtain. If Jackson files a lawsuit against the parties involved in producing The Apprentice , according to Salkin, the recording could be made available to the public.
“If Kwame Jackson, the candidate who was not hired, were to file a lawsuit perhaps in discovery against Mark Burnett, MGM and maybe NBC, he could force MGM to open that archive and we could know for sure if there was a tape,” he said.
As Raw Story notes, claims made in Salkin and Short’s book match former White House Adviser Omarosa Manigault’s allegations; Manigault claims to have personally heard the recording.
Salkin and Short revealed the shocking details of their book just days after the U.S. House of Representatives voted to condemn President Donald Trump’s tweets aimed at four progressive women of color — Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib, and Ayanna Pressley — as racist.
Trump was caught on tape using the N-word — and the recording still exists: Authors https://t.co/qOuZJcc0QX
— Raw Story (@RawStory) July 18, 2019
As BBC reported, the resolution passed by 240 votes to 187, with every Democrat, four Republicans, and an Independent — Justin Amash of Michigan — voting to approve the resolution.
Trump has since defended himself from attacks, claiming that neither his statements — he said that the women should “go back” to their countries, although most of them were born in the U.S. — nor his intent were racist.
The president was accused of racism again yesterday, following a fiery rally speech during which he viciously attacked one of the congresswomen, Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, prompting the crowd to chant “send her back.”
The Trump Show you see: Racist tweets, demagogic chants at rallies.
What you don’t see: Regulatory enforcement so lax white-collar defense firms worry they’ll lose clients, air pollution rising for the first time in years. https://t.co/0lBBngygnQ
— Vox (@voxdotcom) July 18, 2019
As The Hill reports, Trump’s incitement was widely condemned, even by some of his staunchest supporters in the public sphere. British journalist Piers Morgan said that the rally had “bordered on fascism.”
However, although some Republican congressmen have condemned the event, few have described it as racist.