'Apprentice' producer says they 'struggled to

'Apprentice' producer says they 'struggled to make Trump seem coherent'
BY OWEN DAUGHERTY - 12/28/18 03:49 PM EST 1,128
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A TV producer who oversaw the first five seasons of President Trump's former reality television show “The Apprentice” says those working behind the scenes often “struggled to make Trump seem coherent.”

In an interview with The New Yorker for the magazine's Jan. 7 issue, Katherine Walker said “we cleaned it up so that he was his best self.”

“He wouldn’t read a script — he stumbled over the words and got the enunciation all wrong,” Walker said. “But off the cuff he delivered the kind of zesty banter that is the lifeblood of reality television.”


Walker credited Trump with coining his own famous “You’re fired” catchphrase, but said NBC's "Apprentice" reinvigorated his image as a successful businessman.

“I don’t think any of us could have known what this would become,” she said. “But Donald would not be president had it not been for that show.”

The lengthy piece in The New Yorker argues that Mark Burnett, the former executive producer of “The Apprentice," helped pave Trump’s path to the presidency by ending a downward slope in his professional life and giving him the appearance of a tycoon.

Walker said Burnett acknowledged the New York real estate mogul was at a low point in his career, but he “sensed Trump’s potential for a comeback.”

Trump has long touted his business acumen and ability to make deals as political assets, running in 2016 as an outsider with a string of achievements in his past.

Walker added that Trump often spoke in a derogatory manner about women, frequently commenting on their bodies.

https://thehill.com/homenews/media/423142-app...m-coherent