Search Results for "Ramin Setoodeh"

Author Ramin Setoodeh's book "Apprentice in Wonderland," dropped Tuesday and it features some odd admissions from Donald Trump and his heirs about their lives starring in a reality TV show, on the campaign trail, and in the aftermath of a 2020 election loss.

Of particular interest are revelations about Eric Trump, who often remains out of the spotlight compared to his elder brother, Donald Trump Jr.

Like his father, Eric describes the days of being on NBC's "The Apprentice" as easier times compared to life on the campaign trail. Once his father began politics, they treated it just like the family business. Everyone was all-in, whether they knew what they were doing or not. ...

A new recording of Donald Trump that aired on MSNBC reveals the ex-president justifying "horrible" and "evil" actions through his belief that just one thing matters: ratings.

While conducting one of six interviews he did with Trump, Variety editor and author Ramin Setoodeh discussed with Nicolle Wallace "The Apprentice" and how it impacted the 2016 election.

"So, if I went back to NBC right now to do something, they would do anything I wanted to do, showbiz-wise. I'm talking about," Trump said in the recording. "Doing a show, anything I wanted to do right now, 100 percent."...

After he lost the 2020 election, a defeated Donald Trump still acted as if he was president.

That's according to Variety co-editor-in-chief Ramin Setoodeh, who appeared on CNN's "The Source with Kaitlan Collins" on Tuesday night, claiming that in at least one of his conversations with the 45th president — post-2020 election defeat at Trump Tower in New York City — he curiously acted as if he was still doing the job during the interview. Setoodeh was plugging his book Apprentice in Wonderland: How Donald Trump and Mark Burnett Took America Through the Looking Glass.

"We watched clips of the show together," Setoodeh explained of one interview he conducted where they watched episodes of Trump's hit TV show "The Apprentice." "We watched the theme song, he really lit up. He watched firing — the first firing of Omarosa [Manigault Newman]." ...

Donald Trump is seemingly obsessed with Will & Grace star Debra Messing, a former NBC colleague turned high-profile critic.

Variety co-editor in chief Ramin Setoodeh interviewed the former president extensively in 2021 and 2023 for his book "Apprentice in Wonderland," and he said Trump frequently mentioned the actress and Democratic activist, according to excerpts published by The Daily Beast.

“Trump brings up Messing again,” Setoodeh wrote. “He confirms something that he’d only dropped hints about in our last meeting. During the early years of The Apprentice, Trump even had a crush on Will & Grace’s leading lady. Maybe that’s why he can’t quite shake the bitterness that now exists between them."...

Many critics have accused Donald Trump of being a "nepo baby" in the Trump Organization given how much he inherited from his father.

Yet, in a new book, Trump rails against the idea of children getting to where they are based on the success of their parents.

More than halfway into "Apprentice in Wonderland," writer and reporter Ramin Setoodeh recalls the 2009 blowup after Trump fired Melissa Rivers from the show. Stories have surfaced about Trump pretending Rivers' mother, Joan, was somehow a Republican and a supporter of his. Trump even went so far as to say that she voted for him in 2016 from beyond the grave. Joan Rivers died in 2014. ...

In a new review of Ramin Setoodeh's book "Apprentice in Wonderland," Washington Post critic Ron Charles describes Trump as something of an old woman wandering about life reliving the glory days.

Amid the old stories of seasons of "The Apprentice," perceived foes, great wins, and his own "genius," Trump is described as Miss Havisham from Charles Dickens' 1861 novel "Great Expectations."

"I had heard of Miss Havisham up town — everybody for miles around, had heard of Miss Havisham up town — as an immensely rich and grim old lady who lived in a large and dismal house barricaded against robbers, and who led a life of seclusion," Dickens wrote. ...