A supervising editor on the first six seasons of “The Apprentice,” Donald Trump’s long-running reality television series, recalled what he said was Trump’s often offensive behavior on set in an interview published Wednesday.
“Trump’s favorite word was ‘drill,’” Jonathan Braun, who co-produced the show for one season as well, told CineMontage, the journal of the Motion Picture Editors Guild. “He was always saying between takes, ‘I’d like to drill her,’ lewdly referring to female crew members working on set. He couldn’t help himself making comments about women and the way they looked. He also had comments about women he found less attractive. There was no question he took the men a lot more seriously than the women.”
Braun also recalled that Trump “was always telling this woman producer to ‘Go get me a Diet Coke.’ And she would reply, ‘But Donald, I need to be here to help record this dialogue.’ And Trump would reply, ‘No you don’t; go get me a Diet Coke.’ This isn’t that big of a deal, but it struck me as insensitive.”
A spokeswoman for the Trump campaign, Hope Hicks, responded Wednesday to Braun’s allegations by telling Variety, “More fiction from Hollywood’s finest.”
On Friday, a leaked “Access Hollywood” tape showed Trump bragging about being able to grope and kiss women without their consent due to his celebrity status. That recorded moment, and Trump’s denial at Sunday’s second presidential debate that he ever actually carried out such behavior, was followed up Wednesday night by a cascade of new allegations of sexual misconduct against the Republican presidential nominee.
On Twitter Saturday, another former member of the production team on “The Apprentice,” Bill Pruitt, wrote, “As a producer on seasons 1 & 2 of #theapprentice I assure you: when it comes to the #trumptapes there are far worse.”
CineMontage also spoke to Pamela Malouf, an editor on three seasons of “The Apprentice,” who remembers Trump differently.
“Anything I ‘heard’ about Trump was hearsay and although I did edit an occasional scene with Trump, nothing I saw was abnormal or offensive or even worthy of note,” she said Wednesday. “I never saw Trump be anything other than a consummate professional in the material I worked on.”
