Sebastian Stan attends "The Apprentice" premiere at the DGA New York Theater on Tuesday, Oct. 8, 2024, in New York. (Photo by Charles Sykes/Invision/AP)
COHN ARTIST
The biopic Donald Trump tried to stop depicts him as a sociopathic sex abuser who scammed his way into America’s upper echelons. But the film’s writer swears the timing of the release — less than a month before the presidential election — is a total coincidence.
- Former President Donald Trump learned how to thrive as a corrupt New York City socialite from Roy Cohn, the infamous attorney known for helping disgraced former Senator Joseph McCarthy persecute alleged communists in the 1950s. “The Apprentice” is a Frankenstein-style Trump origin story, depicting Cohn taking Trump (played by Marvel hero Sebastian Stan) under his wing and teaching him to intimidate people and break the law to get what he wants. The film is a scathing indictment of Trump’s character — made obvious when his presidential campaign tried to stop the movie’s release. Trump’s lawyers sent the director a cease-and-desist letter threatening Hollywood companies against distributing the film in the U.S., according to script writer Gabriel Sherman.
- Yet the creators weren’t planning an October surprise, Sherman insists. “We never intended … [for] the movie to come out before an election,” Sherman, the Vanity Fair special correspondent, told What A Day. “I didn’t write it as politics. I wrote it as art. I wanted to write a story that felt true to me, and if that changes people’s minds, that’s great. If it doesn’t, that’s also fine. It’s not propaganda.”
- Well… I mean, okay. The reality is that there’s no way to drop a film depicting the dubious origins of a presidential candidate four weeks before the election and not be pretty political about it — whether or not that was the original goal. And for those who think Trump should never step foot within 50 miles of the White House ever again, there’s plenty in this biopic to hate-watch. The film opens with former President Richard Nixon’s famous “I’m not a crook” speech, in an obvious comparison to Trump… a literal convicted criminal. In the movie, Cohn, played by Jeremy Strong, teaches Trump his three rules of winning: “Attack, attack, attack … Admit nothing, deny everything … No matter what happens, what they say about you, no matter how beaten you are, you claim victory and never admit defeat.” The film focuses on Trump’s early rise to notoriety, but it also alludes to the later story we all know: his attempts to remain in power after the last election and dunderheaded, pathological refusal to admit he lost.
Yet Sherman said the first draft of the movie was written in 2018, well before Trump tried to steal the 2020 election. “That’s what’s uncanny, or a little scary, about the way … life can imitate art,” he said.
- Ali Abbasi, the film’s director, likewise insisted to our friends at the What A Day podcast that the film isn’t supposed to be an outright negative representation of Trump — despite including a rape scene among other objectively repulsive moments in the life of the young businessman. Rather, according to Abbasi, it’s just supposed to be realistic. “I didn’t think that we should do an unflattering, raw version of … him and bash him or anything. I felt like we should be as non-partial in political terms as possible and let the human being come through, whichever way that comes through,” Abbasi said.
- One member of Trump’s inner circle couldn’t help himself from praising the film, never mind Trump’s legal rantings. The infamous political operative Roger Stone, one of Trump’s oldest and closest confidantes, hailed the acting, posting: “I knew Roy Cohn. Roy Cohn was a friend of mine. The portrayal of Roy Cohn by actor Jeremy Strong in the new movie ‘The Apprentice’ is uncanny in its accuracy.” Otherwise, MAGAworld has stayed mostly quiet about the release. Former Gov. Mike Huckabee (R-AR) called for a “buy-cott” to support a film about former President Ronald Reagan instead of “The Apprentice.”
The movie appears highly likely to get under Donald Trump’s skin. At least the scenes of him getting liposuction and a hair transplant will…
‘IF HE LOSES, I’M FUCKED’
Billionaire conspiracy theorist Elon Musk is throwing his time and fortune behind Donald Trump’s campaign. But he might want to go back to minding his own business (like, his actual business) which has lately suffered a series of significant and embarrassing setbacks.
Shares in his Tesla automotive company cratered after the big Thursday reveal of its much-hyped robotaxi, which is basically a two-door sedan version of the Cybertruck without a steering wheel or pedals. After years of Musk’s broken promises about this project, the lack of detail sent Wall Street investors scrambling to sell his stock. Musk has touted self-driving service for years (once predicting that over a million robotaxis would be on the road by 2020). Now, he says they’ll go into production before 2027. “Tesla’s Robotaxi Event Disappoints Investors,” a Wall Street Journal headline blared.
SpaceX, another Musk venture, also had a tough week — thanks to Musk’s irresponsible conduct on his social media platform, X, formerly Twitter. The California Coastal Commission rejected the company’s request to launch 50 rockets annually from a base in the Golden State: “Elon Musk is hopping about the country, spewing and tweeting political falsehoods and attacking FEMA while claiming his desire to help the hurricane victims with free Starlink access to the internet,” Commissioner Gretchen Newsom said at the meeting, according to Politico.
All this is happening as Musk bows as low as he can to Trump, the MAGA God-King Overlord. Musk has deployed X to boost Trump’s message over the past few months, stopped a damning dossier about GOP veep candidate JD Vance (R-OH) from circulating, and launched a political action committee to supercharge the GOP campaign. Meanwhile, Trump said Musk is donating some $500 million to the PAC, the New York Times reports — which helps explain why Musk jumped up and down on stage at a Trump rally last weekend like a Tasmanian Devil dosed with Panera Bread Charged Lemonade.
Musk may be hoping that a Trump win would reverse his recent defeats — since Trump has mulled putting Musk in charge of some kind of vague government efficiency program, in a position where Musk might be able to do a hell of a lot of self-dealing (since his companies have benefited heavily from government contracts and electric vehicle subsidies). Tesla and SpaceX combined get more money from the government than National Public Radio, according to one report.
Musk, of course, put it differently.
“If he loses, I’m fucked,” Musk quipped while talking with far-right commentator Tucker Carlson this week. Then he joked (?): “How long do you think my prison sentence is going to be?”
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- Tim Walz, bashing Donald Trump’s "God Bless the U.S.A. Bible" (reportedly printed in China)
NEWS NEWS NEWS
Israeli troops injured four U.N. peacekeepers in Lebanon on Thursday and Friday as Israel’s invasion of the country continues.
Donald Trump’s presidential campaign is filled with lobbyists despite his longstanding promise to “drain the swamp,” the Washington Post reports. At least five people advising the former president have recently lobbied for tobacco, vaping or cannabis, and another two have advocated for TikTok, the Chinese-owned social media company engulfed in lawsuits. Who could have guessed he didn’t really mean it!
Sam Brown, the GOP candidate for Senate in Nevada, “has put himself in this tough political spot” of refusing to answer where he stands on abortion access, incumbent Sen. Jacky Rosen (D-NV) told Jon Lovett on today’s Pod Save America episode. In past races, Brown “ran an anti-choice organization, and he’s only softened and covered up his position in order to win.” Gee, it’s almost like being against abortion is a losing stance these days!
After Helene and Milton tore up the Southeast United States, scientists are warning that hurricane season isn’t over yet — and pointing the finger directly at climate change for making this a “crazy busy” year. “We should expect to see more high-end hurricanes and we should expect to also see them later in the season,” Jeff Masters, meteorologist for Yale Climate Connections, told the Associated Press.
Actor Steven Seagal said that he would fight for Russia and “die if need be” in a new documentary, according to the Kyiv Independent. After his acting career went south, Seagal became enamored with Moscow, where he reportedly lives, and is a Russian propagandist. Your life is not an action film, Steven. Call it quits, you weirdo!
CFR Spotlights Foreign Policy in the U.S. Presidential Election
In the run-up to the November presidential election, the Council on Foreign Relations has launched Election 2024, an initiative that offers a wide range of resources–including a content hub, candidate tracker, podcasts, videos, and more–to help voters better understand the critical international issues at stake.
Elections matter. Leaders matter. The world matters.
