Trump's Team Threatens to Sue 'The Apprentice' Movie’s Producers for ‘Blatantly False Assertions'

Trigger Warning: This article contains themes of sexual abuse that some readers may find distressing.

Donald Trump's campaign is considering legal action against the creators of The Apprentice, which had its premiere at the Cannes Film Festival. On Monday, Ali Abbassi's film The Apprentice allegedly earned an eight-minute standing ovation. Sebastian Stan plays Trump, only a New York real estate mogul at the time, while Jeremy Strong plays Roy Cohn, the future President's real-life mentor and a former attorney. Following the film's premiere on Monday, rumors quickly spread that the movie painted Trump in a negative light. It seemed that his professional relationship with Cohn and his relationship with his first wife, Ivana Trump, were also points of contention.

Steven Cheung, a spokesman for the Trump campaign, told The Hill, "We will be filing a lawsuit to address the blatantly false assertions from these pretend filmmakers. This garbage is pure fiction which sensationalizes lies that have been long debunked. As with the illegal Biden Trials, this is election interference by Hollywood elites, who know that President Trump will retake the White House and beat their candidate of choice because nothing they have done has worked. This ‘film’ is pure malicious defamation, should not see the light of day, and doesn’t even deserve a place in the straight-to-DVD section of a bargain bin at a soon-to-be-closed discount movie store, it belongs in a dumpster fire."

In one moment in the film, Donald is seen abusing his former wife, Ivana (played by Maria Bakalova) sexually. The Daily Beast released a piece in July 2015 that brought to light sexual assault claims from a 1993 biography of the billionaire and former host of the titular reality TV program. Harry Hurt III, the author of Lost Tycoon: The Many Lives of Donald J. Trump, offered anecdotes from Ivana's early 1990s divorce deposition. Ivana described a horrifically violent encounter that she dubbed 'rape' during the hearing, according to Hurt's account of it.

The claimed attack described in Hurt's writing was a response to a botched scalp reduction procedure. "Your doctor fucking ruined me!" Donald reportedly shouted at Ivana before he pulled out her hair 'fistfuls of hair from her scalp, as if to mirror the pain he felt from his own operation.' He then reportedly proceeded to unzip his pants and have intercourse with her. After the entire ordeal, Ivana locked herself up and was 'crying for the rest of night.' However, when she later spoke about the incident, she said that the term 'rape' was not used in a 'literal or criminal sense.' 

As per CNN, both the accusations and his surgical procedure for scalp reduction were refuted by the former President. After the Daily Beast asked for a response, Michael Cohen, the attorney for Trump at the time, attacked Tim Mak, the writer of The Daily Beast piece, threatening to 'ruin' his life. The fact that Cohen asserted—erroneously—that it is impossible to rape your spouse was even more unsettling.

Ivana also made a second statement after the article came out in which she reaffirmed that she and Donald were 'the best of friends' and claimed that her own account was 'totally without merit.' She said, "I have recently read some comments attributed to me from nearly 30 years ago at a time of very high tension during my divorce from Donald. The story is totally without merit. Donald and I are the best of friends and together have raised three children that we love and are very proud of."

SEXUAL ASSAULT: If you are being subjected to sexual assault or know of anyone who is, please call the National Sexual Assault Hotline at 800.656.HOPE (4673).