Donald Trump is reportedly considering creating The Apprentice: White House in collaboration with TV producer Mark Burnett. According to The Daily Beast , the two have had multiple discussions about the idea as a means of capitalizing on Trump’s status as the 45th President of the United States when he leaves office. But on Twitter, people have been slamming the alleged plan.
“Any attempt to do a show called Apprentice: White House with #Trump would be inappropriate, and insulting,” one person tweeted directly to Burnett, creator of The Apprentice and The Celebrity Apprentice.
Several tweets referenced Trump’s ongoing legal issues as one of the reasons they will not support the idea of him helming a new political spinoff in the franchise.
“Trump and Mark Burnett have spit-balled The Apprentice: White House ,” one Twitter user wrote. “Here’s a more realistic idea — The Apprentice: Big House !”
“The only episode of The Apprentice I’m interested in watching is The Apprentice: I’m In Prison Now starring Trump and his entire admin and his bumbling adult kids,” another added.
“Trump will be doing The Apprentice: Department of Corrections Edition, ” a fourth person tweeted.
The Daily Beast claims that Trump has privately told some of his associates that he’s nostalgic about his days of hosting reality TV. He hosted The Celebrity Apprentice until his presidential run.
But a spokesperson from Mark Burnett’s camp has said that he and the president have not spoken about the prospect of creating more television shows together.
“The quoted statements attributed to Mr. Burnett are absolutely false. Among other things, the president and Mr. Burnett have not discussed making television shows in any shape or form,” the statement read.
The White House did not supply a comment on the story, The Daily Beast says.
The Apprentice first aired in 2004 with Trump as the host. It pitted contestants from different professional backgrounds against one another as they competed for a chance to be mentored by him. The show’s celebrity spinoff premiered in 2008. In The Celebrity Apprentice, famous contestants competed for financial donations to their favorite charities.
The franchise has previously been credited with giving Trump the legitimacy and popularity he needed to fuel a successful run for the White House. A New Yorker article from 2017 described The Apprentice series as a contributing factor that made Trump electable because it rehabilitated the public image he’d established as a real estate developer in New York.
President Trump has not tweeted about The Daily Beast’s story about his alleged plans to return to reality TV, as of this writing.