At the end of the first season of his reality TV show The Apprentice, Donald Trump’s choice of a winner was a matter of black and white.
And according to a former producer, Trump did not mince words about who the winner would be. In an essay for Slate, Bill Pruitt recalls how Trump, just as brash and whiny decades ago as he is now, openly used the N-word to refer to the first season’s Black finalist and was dead set against crowning him the victor.
The contestant in question was Kwame Jackson, a Black Wall Street banker who worked at Goldman Sachs, Pruitt writes. In the final episode of season one, Jackson was pitted against Bill Rancic, a white entrepreneur from Chicago who owned a cigar business, and they were tasked with managing two separate events at Trump properties. Pruitt writes that while the producers were legally barred from telling Trump which contestant to choose as the winner, they skirted a Federal Communications Commission penalty by having weekly backroom sessions with the billionaire, all recorded on tape, in which they weighed the pros and cons of each.
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While discussing Jackson’s and Rancic’s performances, Pruitt writes, assistant judge Carolyn Kepcher subtly began to advocate in Jackson’s favor. She told Trump she’d seen Jackson overcome more obstacles in his task than Rancic did, especially in the way he managed Omarosa Manigault Newman, who was at that point another contestant who’d already been eliminated.
“I think Kwame would be a great addition to the organization,” Kepcher told Trump outright, according to Pruitt.
But the billionaire apparently wasn’t buying it. Trump, resisting Kepcher’s open praise of Jackson, is described by Pruitt as “wincing” multiple times while trying to draw out Jackson’s weaknesses.
“Why didn’t he just fire her?” Trump asked his advisers, referring to Omarosa.
“That’s not his job,” one producer responded, “that’s yours.”
“I don’t think he knew he had the ability to do that,” Kepcher added.
“Yeah,” Trump conceded, in Pruitt’s telling, “but, I mean, would America buy a n----- winning?”
The rest of the room was stunned by Trump’s casual use of the slur, and in Pruitt’s telling, they all struggled to process what they had just heard. Pruitt writes that he was shocked that Trump was serious and so direct about not selecting Jackson as the winner frankly because he was Black—and that Trump seemed to have no reservations about letting the N-word fly in a meeting recorded on tape.
Over the years, several people who have crossed paths with Trump have alleged that they heard him use the N-word, including Omarosa, who wrote in her 2018 memoir that there were multiple instances during the filming of The Apprentice in which Trump was caught on tape muttering the word. Although Omarosa did not claim to hear Trump say the word herself, she swore that the tapes were real. In 2020, Mary Trump, the former president’s niece, told Rachel Maddow that she too had heard her uncle use the N-word, as well as “antisemitic slurs.” (Pruitt also describes an eyebrow-raising exchange with a Jewish contestant in which Trump asked him if he believed in the “genetic pool.”)
Mark Burnett, who owned the outtakes to The Apprentice through his production company, which is owned by MGM, tried to dodge public calls to release the tapes in 2016. In a joint statement that year, Burnett and MGM said that it was MGM’s decision, restricted by various contracts, whether to release the outtakes.
“Despite reports to the contrary, Mark Burnett does not have the ability nor the right to release footage or other material from The Apprentice. Various contractual and legal requirements also restrict MGM’s ability to release such material,” the statement said.
The Biden campaign, which has been trying to court Black voters, slammed Trump as a “textbook racist” after Pruitt revived the N-word allegations.
Jasmine Harris, the Black media director for the campaign, issued a scathing statement on Thursday afternoon. “No one is surprised that Donald Trump, who entered public life by falsely accusing Black men of murder and entered political life spreading lies about the first Black president, reportedly used the N-word to casually denigrate a successful Black man,” Harris said, referring to the bogus statistics Trump shared about Black people and crime and the birther conspiracy theory he peddled about Barack Obama.
“Donald Trump is exactly who Black voters know him to be: a textbook racist who disrespects and attacks the Black community every chance he gets, and the most ignorant man to ever run for president,” she continued. “It’s why Black voters kicked him out of the White House in 2020, and it’s why they’ll make him a loser a second time this November.”
Producer Pruitt’s new disclosure appears to be the first time someone in Trump’s proximity both claims to directly have heard him use the N-word and alleges that there is evidence to prove it. Trump, of course, has claimed the recordings don’t exist. But if the tapes are real, they could put the rumors to rest for good.
