Donald Trump is not happy about the new film about the early years of his business career.
Emmy nominee Sebastian Stan takes the lead in Ali Abbasi’s new movie The Apprentice, which centres around Trump in the 1970s and 80s.
The film premiered at Cannes earlier in the year, and while it received a somewhat mixed reaction from critics after its first screening, the response from the Trump camp was much more scathing.
Steven Cheung, the spokesperson for Trump’s presidential campaign, threatened legal action against the film back in May, branding The Apprentice “garbage” and “pure fiction which sensationalises lies that have been long debunked”.
However, Trump himself had remained tight-lipped about the project until Monday morning, when he shared a lengthy post on Truth Social, the platform he owns.
“A FAKE and CLASSLESS Movie written about me, called The Apprentice (do they even have the right to use that name without approval?) will hopefully ‘bomb’,” Trump wrote.
He added: “It’s a cheap, defamatory and politically disgusting hatchet job, put out right before the 2024 Presidential Election, to try and hurt the Greatest Political Movement in the History of our Country [sic].”
Trump’s spokesperson had previously described The Apprentice as “election interference by Hollywood elites”, claiming it “should not see the light of day”, belongs “in a dumpster fire” and “doesn’t even deserve a place in the straight-to-DVD section of a bargain bin at a soon-to-be-closed discount movie store”.
The former US president’s post on Truth Social concluded: “So sad that HUMAN SCUM, like the people involved in this hopefully unsuccessful enterprise, are allowed to say and do whatever they want in order to hurt a Political Movement, which is far bigger than any of us.”
Director Ali Abbasi had claimed back in May that he didn’t think his film is one that Trump himself “would dislike”.
“I don’t necessarily think he would like it,” he quickly added. “But I think he’d be surprised. So I’m happy to meet him, have a screening and then we can discuss it afterwards.”
More recently, Ali said of any potential action from Trump’s team over his film: “They know we’re right. They know there’s nothing to be sued about.
“They know that things are accurate and double and triple, quadruple checked journalistically and legally. There’s nothing there, you know.”
“I mean, bring it on. That’s what I tell them,” he added defiantly.
The Apprentice is due to hit UK cinemas on Friday 18 October.