Donald Trump is used to waging war against those seeking to hold him to account—from political rivals, to the media, to law enforcement. Now he’s got a new fight: trying to stop you from seeing The Apprentice, a film that lays bare his Faustian relationship with the notoriously unscrupulous political operator Roy Cohn, which made him the divisive mogul we know today. Add to that tales of dalliances with younger women, amphetamine highs, and plastic surgery: Welcome to the creepy underside of Trump’s increasingly thin comb-over.
It may seem surprising that a man with such an insatiable appetite for seeing his name in gold wants to block the release of a film in which he is the inspiration for the protagonist. But the movie paints a damning—though dramatised, as the opening credit indicates—portrait of the making of the ex-president. “We will be filing a lawsuit to address the blatantly false assertions from these pretend filmmakers,” Steven Cheung, from the Trump campaign, said in May. “This garbage is pure fiction which sensationalises lies that have been long debunked.” A cease-and-desist letter was duly sent to the filmmakers, accusing them of “malicious defamation.” Evidently, the filmmakers are indeed real, and the film has received acclaim, being described in one review as, “the Donald Trump movie that you never knew you needed.”
As you might have guessed, Trump’s very anti-free speech attempts to scupper the release of the movie, which has already premiered at Cannes, where it received an 11-minute ovation, have failed. The Apprentice is set to be shown in cinemas across the UK and Ireland from 18 October, just under a fortnight before the US presidential election which could return Trump to the White House. The film’s director Ali Abbasi has said he does not believe Trump, played by Marvel actor Sebastian Stan, would dislike the movie, despite a theatrical retelling of an alleged 1989 rape against his ex-wife Ivana Trump, played by Borat star Maria Bakalova, and the dramatisation of his sinister relationship with Cohn, an attorney and power broker portrayed by Jeremy Strong of Succession fame.
It all began in 1973, at Le Club, an exclusive Manhattan drinking hole, when rising real estate tycoon Trump was introduced to Cohn. He swiftly took Trump under his wing and imparted advice that would shape his future and change the course of history. Cohn, who would refer to Trump as his best friend, appears to have inspired Trump to keep his skin orange year-round through artificial means, and was the type of mentor you’d get if you ordered Machiavelli on Wish.com. His philosophy—deny, deflect, and destroy—fit Trump like a glove, transforming a young mogul into a master of moral amnesia and the living epitome of the 1980s’ culture of “greed is good” excess.
“The government has just filed suit against our company,” Trump recalled telling Cohn during their first encounter, “saying that we discriminated against blacks … What do you think I should do?” His future mentor replied: “Tell them to go to hell and fight the thing in court and let them prove you discriminated.” Trump took Cohn’s cynical advice and unsuccessfully sued the Department of Justice for $100 million, claiming defamation in an attempt to shift the narrative in the press, before settling out of court.
The film tells the troubling tale of how Trump shaped himself in the image of the McCarthyite communist-hunter Cohn, almost like how a son copies his father. Cohn had famously pushed President Dwight Eisenhower to ban homosexual people from federal government employment and left a couple consigned to the electric chair for allegedly spying, though the details remain disputed to this day. The communist witch hunt, however, ultimately culminated in political defeat for Cohn, but he nonetheless returned to New York feigning victory after a series of damaging Senate hearings and had a party thrown in his honour at Hotel Astor on Times Square. (Never admitting defeat and always claiming the win is a cheap, though bold, trick that Trump would unsuccessfully attempt following his 2020 election loss.)
Backed by his father’s small fortune, Trump started to make his billions in the decade that Reaganomics let the rich run wild, hand-in-hand with Cohn, as New York City transformed from crime-ridden, decaying near-bankruptcy to the glamorous citadel of today. In 1980, Trump unveiled his first major project: the 1,400-room Grand Hyatt Hotel near New York’s Grand Central Station (thanks to a tax break secured by Cohn), but the solid marble of his other ventures was funded with less-than-solid loans and his foray into the casino business was a disaster.
Throughout this period, Trump—who often presented an image of demure flamboyance during the 1980s—was a regular attendee of Cohn’s soirees, where he was doted on by the host. It’s ironic, considering Trump’s four indictments (and counting), that the guest lists of Cohn’s parties—frequented by politicians, celebrities, wealthy businessmen, mobsters, and judges—were once described as follows: “If you’re indicted, you’re invited.”
In 1986, when Cohn died from AIDS-related complications—shortly after he was debarred from practising law for attempting to alter the will of a dying client to enrich himself—Trump was said to be the last person he spoke to on the phone. Trump never forgot Cohn, either. On the day Trump was elected president in November 2016, he reportedly told an old friend: “Wouldn’t Roy love to see this moment? Boy, do we miss him.”
Stan, who plays Trump, has described the role as “riding a psychotic horse through a blazing stable” and has been tipped alongside co-star Strong as a major contender for awards season, with early buzz suggesting he could be in the running for a ‘Best Actor’ nomination next year. The hype around the film is only continuing to grow, and Trump—who still wears those weird 1980s suit jackets with gigantic shoulder pads—is only too aware that this could be the moment that people finally see through this unique window into his psyche. Trump hasn’t watched it himself yet, but the inevitable tantrum in response to the movie he tried to block may define his legacy—and the future of the world at large.
The Apprentice is exclusively in cinemas across the UK and Ireland from October 18th. https://www.theapprenticefilm.co.uk
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