New allegations Trump made racially insensitive comments on 'Apprentice'

A man is photographed looking into the camera.

By Garance Burke and Meg Kinnard

June 7, 2024 9:46 AM PT

Fresh allegations are surfacing about Donald Trump’s disrespectful behavior toward Black people on “The Apprentice,” the hit reality TV show that launched his political career.

Former contestant Gene Folkes told the Associated Press that Trump used racially insensitive words when Folkes was fired from the show in 2010. Folkes also said he got a cease-and-desist letter from NBC barring him from speaking publicly about his experience.

A former producer also recently published an account in Slate alleging that Trump used a racist slur to refer to Kwame Jackson, a Black contestant who was a finalist on the show’s first season, and said he came forward because his non-disclosure agreement had expired.

The fresh allegations come as Trump seeks to make inroads with Black voters in his third run for the White House. A Trump campaign spokesman has dismissed the accounts as false and politically motivated. Questions remain about whether any of it was caught on tape.

Here’s what to know about new claims of racially insensitive exchanges tied to “The Apprentice”:

A contestant’s story

Folkes said he had just been fired by Trump and was commiserating with a crew member inside a bar at Trump Tower. As the crew member, a Black woman, consoled him, Trump suddenly appeared.

“He came up and he asked me: ‘Is this your woman? Because you two would make a really great couple, you both have the same background,’” Folkes said.

The contestant manager reminded Trump that she worked for him, Folkes said. Then Trump made a comment similar to something he uttered in the boardroom that hadn’t aired on TV, Folkes said.

“He said again, ‘It’s not like I used the N-word,’ and then he walked off, and that was that,” said Folkes, a New York-based consultant, podcast host and Air Force veteran.

Trump campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung denied Folkes’ claims, calling them “completely fabricated accusations” that had been debunked in 2016, when Trump first ran for office.

“Nobody took it seriously then, and they won’t now, because it’s fake news,” Cheung said.

Folkes said he believes his exchanges with Trump inside the bar were recorded since he was still wearing a microphone.

After his firing in October 2010, Folkes blogged about his experience on the show. He said he soon got a call from NBC executives. According to a document provided by Folkes, in early November NBC’s then-vice president for legal affairs, Shelly Tremain, sent him a cease-and-desist order and said the network would seek to recover $1 million if he kept talking about his participation in the series or violating his “application agreement.”

Folkes responded to Tremain’s team in an email, saying his portrayal on the show was “unfortunate, inaccurate, stereotyping being applied to a member of a protected class,” according to a copy of the message viewed by the AP. “Review the boardroom scene of episode 5 in its entirety for a very clear picture of the false portrayal and stereotyping. … I harbor no interest in publicly commenting about Mr. Trump.”

Folkes said the network did provide him with extra therapy sessions following his firing, which he said helped him to process the reputational damage he suffered as a contestant. NBC declined to comment about him and Tremain did not respond to a message.

“After a decade of [military] service, I can take a lot of stress. It’s not like, ‘Oh, he fired me and hurt my feelings,’” Folkes said.

Allegations of a racist slur

Last week, Bill Pruitt, a former “Apprentice” producer, published a piece in Slate alleging that Trump used a racist slur in a meeting to refer to contestant Jackson.

Pruitt wrote that one of Trump’s company’s managers suggested picking Jackson over Bill Rancic, the other remaining contestant and a white man. Pruitt wrote that Trump winced before asking whether America would accept a Black man winning, referring to Jackson using the slur.

Pruitt acknowledged that he recalled quotes to the best of his ability and said the conversation was recorded.

“He’s about to run for a second term as president of the United States and I heard him use a term that should have and would have abolished him from politics forever more had people heard about it,” Pruitt told the AP. “Anyone who is capable of using it shouldn’t be leading the country.”

Jackson said Trump never said the slur to his face. But he said Pruitt’s account and the conversation about an alleged Trump recording spotlighted the nation’s inability to resolve questions of what kind of speech voters will tolerate in 2024.

The Trump campaign denied Pruitt’s claim. “Prove it,” Cheung wrote on the X platform, claiming that President Biden’s allies were “peddling” the story “because Biden is hemorrhaging support from Black Americans.”

Where is the footage?

During the decade-plus that “The Apprentice” and its spinoffs were on air, hundreds of cast and crew members signed NDAs, limiting their ability to discuss their experiences. In the last week, as the AP reached out to more than two dozen former crew members and contestants about Trump’s behind-the-scenes behavior, some wondered how contractual agreements may have insulated Trump from blowback about politically volatile comments.

In 2016, entertainment giant MGM said it owned the show’s archive and contractual obligations kept it from unilaterally releasing any unaired, archived material. Amazon has since acquired MGM, and Amazon MGM Studios declined to comment.

The show’s executive producer, Mark Burnett, also has said he doesn’t have the ability or right to release footage. NBC has said it does not own the footage and licensed it from Burnett for broadcast.

Trump’s 2016 campaign was rocked by allegations about his conduct on “The Apprentice” and other appearances during his association with NBC, notably in footage in which he said he could sexually assault women and get away with it because he was a “star.”

Trump’s comments about female cast and crew members were the subject of an AP investigation published in October 2016. After reading the AP story, “Access Hollywood” producers said they dug into their show’s archive, uncovering the 2005 tape in which Trump made remarks about grabbing women’s genitals without their permission.

Trailed by charges of racism

Over time, Trump has called ex-contestants who criticizing him “failing wannabes” motivated by greed. But he has been trailed by charges of racism, including a 1973 discrimination lawsuit against his real estate business; his public call for the executions of five Black and Latino youths — known as the Central Park Five — who were later exonerated of rape allegations; and his fanning of the false conspiracy theory that President Obama was born abroad.

Biden’s campaign, meanwhile, spotlighted Pruitt’s account on social media.

On Monday, the campaign posted a TikTok video featuring Pruitt’s allegations, as well as the affirmation of Omarosa Manigault Newman, who went from a show contestant to White House aide to a Trump critic, that she had heard a tape of Trump using the slur.

“Donald Trump is exactly who we all knew he was — a lifelong racist,” a woman says in the TikTok. “Black voters kicked Donald Trump out of the White House in 2020, and we’re going to do it again this November.”

Associated Press writers Burke reported from San Francisco and Kinnard from Columbia, S.C.