"It’s tempting to look at Duffy’s political ascent—and Trump’s, of course—and reflect on the surprising cultural sticking power of turn-of-the-millennium-style reality TV...."

"The Trump Presidency likely wouldn’t have been possible without 'The Apprentice.’ Duffy’s rise has been less meteoric, but his launchpad, if anything, was an even purer distillation of the genre; as my colleague Emily Nussbaum has written, 'The Real World' pioneered many of reality TV’s modern tropes—the cast of strangers, the apartment as set, the confessional interviews—and cultivated a viewership.... When I revisited the show earlier this summer, it seemed a particularly propitious moment to assert the ongoing influence of reality TV, not least in politics. Spencer Pratt, the villain from 'The Hills,' was running for mayor of Los Angeles, depicting the city as a hellhole and attracting reams of media coverage. Luke Gulbranson ('Summer House') was running for a (year-round) U.S. House seat in Minnesota. Mark Moran ('FBoy Island') was running for Senate in Virginia. The moment no longer seems so propitious. Moran dropped out; Gulbranson lost, as, more significantly, did Pratt, occasioning some hand-wringing about whether his supposed surge had ever been real to begin with. (In fairness, almost nothing is more reality-TV than that.)..."

Writes Jon Allsop, in "Sean Duffy in the Real World/Donald Trump’s Transportation Secretary got his big break on reality TV, and is now out with a six-part YouTube show about a family road trip. How bad could it be?"

"Amazon Discusses ‘Apprentice’ Reboot—With Don Jr. as a Potential Host."

The Wall Street Journal reports.

Interesting, but there is no reason at all to think that Don Jr. has what it takes to assume the role his father played. Schwarzenegger couldn't do it, and Schwarzenegger brought his famous charisma and media-and-politics know-how to the project. The only reason for anyone other than Donald Trump to do "The Apprentice" is to prove the unique skill and talent of our very special President, Donald Trump.

"Well, that’s bad for him to say. That is bad for him. So maybe, maybe that leads me to go the other direction."

Said President Trump after Ken Paxton declined to drop out of the Texas Senate primary race if Trump failed to endorse him.

Quoted in "'That’s bad for him to say': Trump puts Paxton on notice in Texas Senate primary/The president appeared to scold the attorney general" (Politico)

Trump had previously stated he would ask the candidate he does not endorse to step aside. Senate Republicans have already asked Trump to back Cornyn, who narrowly pulled ahead of Paxton on Tuesday in the first round of the primary. The two now face a heated runoff, which could last for another three months unless one of them ends their campaign.

I think Trump refrained from endorsing anyone in Tuesday's primary to give Paxton a chance to show how strong a candidate he was. When he didn't get the 50% needed to avoid a runoff with Cornyn and in fact got less than Cornyn, he failed the test, and Trump was going to give the endorsement to Cornyn. It's sheer practicality. Paxton knows that. Perhaps he thinks his strongest move — a move that might impress Trump — is to say he'll never give up. It's like an episode of "The Apprentice," except that we don't get to see Paxton explain his strategy while Trump glowers at him.

UPDATE, May 27, 2026: Trump ultimately endorsed Paxton and Paxton won the primary decisively.

"Cracker Barrel should go back to the old logo, admit a mistake based on customer response (the ultimate Poll), and manage the company better than ever before."

"They got a Billion Dollars worth of free publicity if they play their cards right. Very tricky to do, but a great opportunity. Have a major News Conference today. Make Cracker Barrel a WINNER again. Remember, in just a short period of time I made the United States of America the 'HOTTEST' Country anywhere in the World. One year ago, it was 'DEAD.' Good luck!"

Said Trump, who seems to involve himself in everything, in a Truth Social post.

I wasn't going to talk about the Cracker Barrel foofaraw, and I have nothing but free time to look at whatever might attract my attention and scribble about to my heart's content. But Trump talked about it, and that's a layer of meaning I cannot resist.

His Truth Social post is interesting — almost like a challenge on "The Apprentice."

By the way, I think Cracker Barrel needed a better logo. I've never understood what the background shape was supposed to be. Looking for it as I drove the interstate, I thought of it as the sole of a shoe. Or what do you think? A kidney? And then all that extra iconography — the man, his chair, the barrel. That's too much going on when people are whizzing by in cars.

"Winners at the April tasting... included melt​ed snow that had been filtered through Peruvian volcanic rock, and deep-sea water that had been pumped up 80 miles off the coast of South Korea."

"There was water gathered from nets hung in a misty Tasmanian pine forest, and a Texas brand laced with lithium called Crazy Water.... Hotels are adding precisely designed water bars. Home wine cellars have become water cellars, where children are encouraged to select bottles with their parents. Water sommelier programs continue to grow. And of course, water influencers gather more and more followers...."

From "You’ve Heard of Fine Wine. Now Meet Fine Water. Bottled waters from small, pristine sources are attracting a lot of buzz, with tastings, sommeliers and even water cellars" (NYT).

It sounds like comedy, but it's really happening. As for that water pumped up from the "deep sea," it sounds salty, and it had me wondering if it's possible for unsalty water to somehow exist below the salt water. The NYT article doesn't impinge on the fantasy of the specialness of the water, but I believe these waters are processed, are they not? That deep-sea water must be desalinated and then a chosen mix of minerals is added, right? And "water gathered from nets"? Does that sound ethereal to you... or unclean? Why not water gathered from towels hung in a steamy bathroom?

"The F.B.I.’s increasingly pervasive use of the polygraph, or a lie-detector test, has only intensified a culture of intimidation."

"Mr. Patel has wielded the polygraph to keep agents or other employees from discussing a number of topics, including his decision-making or internal moves. Former agents say he is doing so in ways not typically seen in the F.B.I.... Jim Stern, who conducted hundreds of polygraphs while an F.B.I. agent, said... that if someone violated policy, the F.B.I. could polygraph them. But if an agent who legitimately talked to the news media in a previous role had to take one, he said, 'that’s going to be an issue.' 'I never used them to suss out gossip,' he said. At a recent meeting, senior executives were told that the news leaks were increasing in priority — even though they do not involve open cases or the disclosure of classified information. Former officials say senior executives, among others, were being polygraphed at a 'rapid rate.' In May, one senior official was forced out, at least in part because he had not disclosed to Mr. Patel that his wife had taken a knee during demonstrations protesting police violence...."

From "Unease at F.B.I. Intensifies as Patel Ousts Top Officials/Senior executives are being pushed out and the director, Kash Patel, is more freely using polygraph tests to tamp down on news leaks about leadership decisions and behavior" (NYT).

I've made a new tag — "lie detector" — and gone back and applied it to old posts. Interesting to see how many times the topic has come up:

April 2004: "[E]ven if the lie detector was not to be used on [Omarosa], and, indeed, even if lie detector tests are not reliable, if she believed it was to be used on her and believed it was reliable, her running off at the sight of it is some evidence that she had lied in her accusation about the other contestant....."

April 2005:  "Everyone on TV was into analyzing why [the groom-to-be of the Runaway Bride] would take a private lie detector test, but wanted special conditions before he'd take the police test. He wanted it videotaped, and the police refused...."

July 2005: "Some researchers attached sensors to 101 penises and then showed the possessors of these penises either all-male or all-female porn movies. It was kind of a lie detector test, because the men had all professed to being heterosexual, homosexual, or bisexual...."

October 2008: Ashley Todd, the woman who claimed a black man had carved the letter "B" on her face.

June 2012: "'$1.1 million-plus Gates grants: "Galvanic" bracelets that measure student engagement.'... [I]sn't this basically a lie detector? And if so, won't students train themselves to fool the authorities?"

April 2013:

"Back by popular demand, for the first time in 20 years, the Emmy nominated ORIGINAL APPRENTICE STARRING PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP is back!!"

"Watch Season 1 of The Apprentice, now streaming on Prime Video. New seasons every Monday! #TheApprentice"

Writes Donald Trump, on Truth Social.

It's free — here.

I didn't blog this yesterday because I thought Trump's Fight, Fight, Fight cologne was just a joke.

It is funny, but the product is apparently real:

It's possible that the product idea was created in response to the glorious photographs of Jill Biden seemingly flirting with Donald Trump at the Notre Dame festivities in Paris. I see news articles from 2 days ago saying that Trump had just "launched" the product. So I'm thinking first came this hilarious idea for a fake ad and then came the idea that it can be an actual product.

Because, look, that bottle is completely basic — it's not shaped like an upraised fist — and the lettering is very plain and the product name is close to the first thing you'd think of.

It's like an episode of "The Apprentice." Here are these photographs of the President's wife adoring the former President. Your challenge is to design a Trump-branded product and to use one of the photographs in an ad campaign. 

The joke alone would have been great, but the idea of turning it into a money stream like this is brilliant. Now you know what to get your Trump loving dad Christmas... even though it's utterly well known that Dad never wants cologne.

"[Trump] would fire the absolute wrong person.... [He] had no idea what was going on, and he would just make something up."

"He just had to choose a name... And maybe that was the only name he remembered of the people sitting around.... Our job then was to reverse engineer the show and to make him not look like a complete moron.... to make the person who he fired look not as good."

Said Jonathon Braun, who was a producer on "The Apprentice" (and on "Survivor"), quoted in "The Star-Making Machine That Created ‘Donald Trump’/The inside story of how the producers of 'The Apprentice' crafted a TV version of Mr. Trump — measured, thoughtful and endlessly wealthy — that ultimately fueled his path to the White House" (NYT).

The article is adapted from the book "Lucky Loser: How Donald Trump Squandered His Father’s Fortune and Created the Illusion of Success," by NYT reporters Russ Buettner and Susanne Craig.

Isn't selective editing like that the norm in these competitive reality shows? I remember reading Television Without Pity contemporaneously with those old "Survivor" and "Apprentice" episodes, because sophisticated fans enjoyed watching the show and analyzing the edit. The ultimate winner would get a "hero's edit," and the loser's mistakes would be highlighted. The show had to make sense, but still keep you guessing. That was the method, already developed on "Survivor," but here's Braun trying to impose an interpretation of Trump by selectively presenting his observations — editing! As if Trump was a special sort of bungler, and the editors were covering for him. Trump did the show brilliantly. By the way, what about Jeff Probst? Does he watch the rough footage before he conducts the "tribal council" on "Survivor," or are the editors making him look more savvy than he is? And how would you badmouth Probst if he were running for President?

How, indeed?

A headline pair on the front page of the NYT catches my eye.

"How a Naked Man on a Tropical Island Created Our Current Political Insanity" — The naked man catches my eye, but a quick glance identifies the naked man as Richard Hatch, winner of season 1 of "Survivor," and we know that "Survivor" led to "The Apprentice," Donald Trump's big lateral move into the nation's psyche:

"Hillary Clinton’s laugh was criticized, and also called weird. There was a suggestion that it made her seem inauthentic..."

"... which was a bizarre point, since genuine laughter is, if not involuntary, then very hard to fake. Lenny Bruce once dared a crowd to try it four times in an hour. Calling women overly emotional or hysterical is a sexist trope, and there’s a long history of positioning laughter in opposition to reason. Plato warned against a love of laughter, suggesting it indicates a loss of control. Ever alert to the theater of power, Trump rarely laughs... ...."

Writes Jason Zinoman, in "Kamala Harris’s Laugh Is a Campaign Issue. Our Comedy Critic Weighs in. The Trump campaign sees Harris’s laugh as a vulnerability to exploit. But far from a liability, it is one of her most effective weapons" (NYT).

"What does a laugh say about a person? That he or she is human. In a divided country, it’s something we all do and enjoy. And as anyone who has hung out with friends late into the night knows, it’s contagious. That’s a powerful political tool. As the poet Ella Wilcox wrote, 'Laugh and the world laughs with you.'"

Ella Wilcox? She started that? Oh!

I am laughing at the surprise encounter with what looks like the childless cat lady J.D. Vance was talking about.

Here's the poem, "Solitude":

"Daniels smirks as she looks at celebratory tweets she sent on March 30, 2023, the day Trump was criminally indicted for the first time."

"She posted about drinking champagne and selling 'Team Stormy' merchandise.... So many of Stormy Daniels’s retorts are versions of 'so did Trump.' He calls her 'horseface,' so why can’t she call him an 'orange turd'? He sells his merchandise, so why can’t she sell hers?... Watching Susan Necheles attempt to pull Stormy Daniels apart, I am reminded of a point we made in coverage about Trump not long ago. His goal is not to make people think he’s pure so much as his goal is to suggest his antagonists are all impure.... The defense’s playbook is very clear: Portray Daniels as a money-grubbing, sleazy, dishonest operator who tried to use Trump to get fame and riches from the anti-Trump resistance.... Trump is leaning forward and staring at the screen showing the exhibits of Stormy Daniels’s merchandise, including t-shirts and comic books. He is seemingly very interested in her efforts to make money off of her account of the liaison with him. Necheles brings up a '$40 Stormy Saint of Indictments Candle,' with Daniels draped in a Christ-like robe. Trump recently made news by hawking a Bible for $59.99...."

From the NYT live-blog of the cross-examination.

ADDED: "He is seemingly very interested in her efforts to make money off of her account of the liaison with him" — that makes it sound like a challenge for the contestants on an episode of "The Apprentice." Imagine him coolly assessing the merchandising effort. Perhaps in some secret way, in his businessman/showman mind, he admires her dogged effort to work with what she had.

"The dramatic decision to call Ms. Daniels to the stand would carry both possible benefits and definite risks for prosecutors...."

"Her presence would let Mr. Trump’s defense lawyers attack Ms. Daniels as an extortionist.... Ms. Daniels could also offer context about the environment in which she sold her story of their 2006 encounter, which Mr. Trump denies. She was shopping the story as Mr. Trump’s campaign was reeling in 2016 from the disclosure of a recording on the set of Access Hollywood in which he bragged of groping women. Michael Bachner, a New York City defense lawyer not involved in the case, said that if prosecutors did not call Ms. Daniels to testify, 'it would just be a glaring hole' that the defense would question.... Mr. Trump’s lawyers contend that he did not know that the checks he signed for Mr. Cohen were not for legal fees, and that Mr. Cohen and Mr. Trump’s employees were responsible for any false records. They would be likely to portray Ms. Daniels as someone whose only real connection to Mr. Trump was wanting to be a possible contestant on his reality show...."

From "Stormy Daniels, Once Paid to Keep Quiet, Could Testify Against Trump/Ms. Daniels could take the stand this week, allowing jurors to see and hear from the person at the center of the criminal case against the former president" (NYT).

I would think the prosecutors want to avoid calling her:

"But as he visited the small Ohio town of East Palestine on Wednesday, former President Donald J. Trump sought to hammer home a message just by showing up..."

"... that his successor and the man he’s seeking to replace, President Biden, had been ineffective in responding to a domestic crisis after a train derailed and spewed toxic chemicals early this month. Mr. Trump had arrived on the ground before either Mr. Biden or the transportation secretary to a train derailment many Republicans have turned into a referendum on a lack of federal concern with the needs of red-state America.... [Trump] suggested the administration had shown 'indifference and betrayal' and he talked about how truckloads of his name-brand water would be distributed to residents.... Shortly before Mr. Trump’s visit, federal officials announced that the transportation secretary, Pete Buttigieg, planned to visit East Palestine on Thursday.... He previously said he did not want his visit to be a distraction and would wait until the federal response in East Palestine moved past the emergency phase."

The NYT reports.

Buttigieg had said "he did not want his visit to be a distraction"? That didn't work when George W. Bush said it about Katrina (and it was more believable that he would indeed have been a distraction).

"I should've worked in a pie factory. I knew I missed my calling."

 

It's only just now that I found a way to fit it on this blog — a goodbye to Gilbert Gottfried.

***

"I'm here to supervise balloons!" 

***

"Thank you, mein Führer"/"Only Gilbert can get away with that."

***

"You know, I can't fire you for being inappropriate, because I'm inappropriate. I do many things that are totally inappropriate."

"'Bat Out of Hell' was rejected by dozens of record companies before the album was finally released by Cleveland International, a small label.... It received tepid, even hostile reviews at first."

"But through relentless touring and a 1978 appearance on NBC’s 'Saturday Night Live,' Meat Loaf found an audience, making 'Bat Out of Hell' an enormous, if unexpected hit.... Its signature tune, 'Paradise by the Dashboard Light'... was an ornate melodrama about a teenage make-out session... more than eight minutes long and [it] even contained a long segment narrated by Hall of Fame baseball player and broadcaster Phil Rizzuto, describing a batter rounding the bases and sliding into home. (Rizzuto said he didn’t realize his description was meant to be an elaborate sexual metaphor.) His musical secret, Meat Loaf said, was that he approached every song like an actor preparing for a role. 'I can’t sing unless there’s a character... Because I don’t sing. It’s almost like being schizophrenic — I don’t sing, the character sings.' Early in his career, the long-haired, 300-pound Meat Loaf was openly mocked by critics — and even by [his collaborator Jim] Steinman, who once called him 'a grotesque, bloated creature, who stalked the stage like an animal but acted as if he were a prince.'"

From WaPo's very lengthy obituary, "Meat Loaf, whose operatic rock anthems made him an unlikely pop star, dies at 74."

This wasn't my kind of music, but I can admire his work from afar. People loved him in "The Rocky Horror Show,” and he had a very interesting role in "Fight Club." 

 

And he's got a great Donald Trump connection — "Meat Loaf, should I run for President?" 

 

Later, "You look in my eyes: I am the last person in the fucking world you EVER want to fuck with":

"A few years ago, after Mr. Probst noticed some contestants blaming producers for their 'bad edit,' he wrote a 'Survivor' mission statement that he and his team still consult."

"'Our job is to tell the most authentic version of each person’s story in an electric, visceral, dramatic, and entertaining way,' it reads. 'But it must be authentic.'... Authenticity, 'Survivor' fans have come to know, means warts and all. It means the show can’t, per Mr. Probst’s directive, change the intent of someone’s words during editing. It’s meant watching one contestant demand another remove her fake teeth during a tribal council as payback for a blindside. It’s even meant watching a gay contestant out a trans tribemate, equating his choice not to disclose his transness with deception."

From "Jeff Probst Is the Ultimate ‘Survivor’/Despite many changes to the reality show over the last 21 years, he has been a constant" (NYT).

ADDED: The top-rated comment over there:

No mention of Probst’s mentor Mark Burnett foisting Trump on us, and getting rich , via his other show the Apprentice. Don’t know about you but that proximity to evil would bother me. Like having your tv parents also make napalm in their other job. Maybe being far away in Fiji helps.

The era of reality shows is over? Now, everybody gets a prize.

I'm reading "Controversial new TV show 'The Activist' drastically revamped after backlash/The format will now be more of a documentary feature rather than a competition" (The Hill).

The reality and competition style of the show drew criticism that it would promote performance activism and distract from actual social issues....

“... [I]t has become apparent the format of the show as announced distracts from the vital work these incredible activists do in their communities every day,” the statement [from the producers] began. “As a result, we are changing the format to remove the competitive element and reimagining the concept into a primetime documentary special (air date to be announced).” 

Six activists will be featured on the revamped show, and will automatically be given a cash grant to the organization of their choice rather than compete for a prize money.

I don't know if many people would have watched this show in the multi-episode competition format. How could it have worked? It's like "The Apprentice," but without the forthright motivation of greed. The contestants were still after money, but for their cause. I guess that's like "Celebrity Apprentice." But without celebrities. It was a dog of an idea. 

By making it one episode — a "special" — they're cutting their losses. And they're still trying to look altruistic. They're going to give all the erstwhile contestants a prize, as if that's magnanimous of them. To me, it seems as though they've slipped into the world of everybody gets a trophy. 

I'm looking forward to the new season of "Survivor," which begins in a few days, on the same network that nixed "The Activist." Imagine watching "Survivor" if all the participants were simply given the same amount of money!

"I write to you today regarding the so-called Disciplinary Committee hearing aimed at revoking my union membership. Who cares!"

"While I’m not familiar with your work, I’m very proud of my work on movies such as Home Alone 2, Zoolander and Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps; and television shows including The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, Saturday Night Live, and of course, one of the most successful shows in television history, The Apprentice—to name just a few! I've also greatly helped the cable news television business (said to be a dying platform with not much time left until I got involved in politics), and created thousands of jobs at networks such as MSDNC and Fake News CNN, among many others. Which brings me to your blatant attempt at free media attention to distract from your dismal record as a union. Your organization has done little for its members, and nothing for me—besides collecting dues and promoting dangerous un-American policies and ideas—as evident by your massive unemployment rates and lawsuits from celebrated actors, who even recorded a video asking, ‘Why isn’t the union fighting for me?' These, however, are policy failures. Your disciplinary failures are even more egregious. I no longer wish to be associated with your union. As such, this letter is to inform you of my immediate resigning from SAG-AFTRA. You have done nothing for me." 

That's Donald Trump's wonderfully caustic letter to the Screen Actors Guild, reported at Fox News. 

It's so refreshing to get a new blast of Trump rhetoric. Therefore, I hope he says yes to the letter from the House Managers, reported at CNN: "Two days ago, you filed an Answer in which you denied many factual allegations set forth in the article of impeachment. You have thus attempted to put critical facts at issue notwithstanding the clear and overwhelming evidence of your constitutional offense. In light of your disputing these factual allegations, I write to invite you to provide testimony under oath, either before or during the Senate impeachment trial, concerning your conduct on January 6, 2021."

"Trump Bows to Reality, Asks Confidants: Should I Do ‘The Apprentice’ Again?"

A headline at The Daily Beast. 

“I received a call from President Trump last week. We chatted about the election briefly [and] he made it clear that he wasn’t giving up on fighting for a second term,” said Eric Bolling, a Sinclair host and friend of the Trump family who appeared on Trump’s reality TV show years ago. “I mentioned to him that I believe whatever happens with the legal fights, he would emerge as the biggest media personality on the planet. Trump has a clear opportunity to be a media mega-personality post-presidency.” 

“I think an Apprentice/Celebrity Apprentice revival would be a humongous hit,” Bolling added. “This iteration would be ratings gold for whomever is fortunate enough to get the reboot.”

First, never use "whomever" in speech. When you're wrong — as Bolling is here — it's the trying-too-hard kind of bad. Just say "whoever" and it doesn't matter if you're right or wrong. 

Second, I can't picture Trump the ex-President going backward into an old show, but I can picture Trump doing something I can't picture, so there's that paradox. I can picture it at a level of abstraction where I can't see it. 

What sort of "Apprentice" could he do? On the original show, the tasks the competing teams faced related to Trump's business. The new show could be about politics and have would-be political operators competing, but I think anyone with serious career ambitions would eschew connection to Trump... unless they wanted a career in Trumpist politics.