John D. Miller, the previous chief advertising and marketing officer for NBCUniversal, apologized for doing “irreparable harm by creating the false image of [Donald] Trump as a successful leader.”
“I deeply regret that. And I regret that it has taken me so long to go public,” Miller wrote in an essay for U.S. Information & World Report.
Miller mirrored on how “The Apprentice,” for which Miller led the advertising and marketing, created a false “narrative that Trump was a super-successful businessman who lived like royalty.”
“In fact, Trump declared business bankruptcy four times before the show went into production, and at least twice more during his 14 seasons hosting,” he wrote, including that the boardroom the place Trump famously instructed contestants, “You’re fired,” was a set as a result of “[Trump’s] real boardroom was too old and shabby for TV.”
Miller additionally described how Trump had no points with mendacity—repeatedly.
“He thought he could simply say something over and over, and eventually people would believe it,” Miller wrote, saying that Trump would declare “The Apprentice” was the No. 1 present on TV when it wasn’t and after he’d been instructed it wasn’t. “He didn’t like being fact-checked back then either,” Miller added.
Miller labored intently with Trump for over a decade, however he’s not the one former ally who’s turned on Trump. These with the uncommon perspective of realizing what Trump behind closed doorways have been warning Individuals of his hazard.
Individuals are lower than three weeks away from discovering out if the nation will once more be led by a wannabe autocrat. And Trump very nicely could also be elected in November. Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris holds solely a 2.4-percentage-point lead over Trump, based on 538’s nationwide polling common. The location’s presidential forecast offers Harris and Trump about equal odds of profitable the Electoral School.
The tight race has former Trump aides like Sarah Matthews talking out towards him.
Matthews, a former Trump White Home spokesperson, testified earlier than Congress in regards to the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the U.S. Capitol. Extra lately, she instructed CNN that if Trump have been elected to a second time period, “competency and experience” can be “out the window.”
In 2023, John Kelly, Trump’s former chief of workers, known as him “a person that has no idea what America stands for and has no idea what America is all about,” including, “God help us.”
Mark Esper, Trump’s former protection secretary, reiterated in a CNN interview on Monday that Trump had urged him to make use of navy intervention to shoot peaceable protesters in summer season 2020.
“President Trump has learned the key is getting people around you that will do your bidding, who will not push back, who will implement what you want to do,” mentioned Esper. “I think he’s talked about that. His acolytes have talked about that. I think loyalty will be the first litmus test.”
John Bolton, Trump’s former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, got here out towards him in a brand new version of his memoir, “The Room Where It Happened,” launched in January. In it, he wrote, “Trump is unfit to be president,” including, “If his first four years were bad, a second four will be worse.”
Arguably, probably the most blunt remarks got here from retired Gen. Mark Milley, the previous chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Employees, who known as Trump “fascist to the core.”
“No one has ever been as dangerous to this country as Donald Trump,” Milley instructed journalist Bob Woodward, in Woodward’s newest e book, “War.”
“Now I realize he’s a total fascist,” Milley mentioned. “He is the most dangerous person to this country.”
Trump’s former lawyer Michael Cohen, who admitted to paying off Stormy Daniels forward of the 2016 election, as soon as mentioned he’d “take a bullet for Trump.” Nonetheless, Cohen has additionally turned on Trump, calling him a “traitorous bastard who doesn’t give a fuck about anyone or anything other than himself.”
“The man makes absolutely no sense. He’s a complete and total danger to our democratic republic in every way, shape, and form,” Cohen mentioned on his “Political Beatdown” podcast on Thursday.
Then there’s former Vice President Mike Pence. As one in every of Trump’s most loyal sycophants in his first time period, Pence appears to have modified after Jan. 6. It took Trump greater than three hours to name off a violent mob chanting “Hang Mike Pence” attributable to Pence’s job certifying the election victory of now-President Joe Biden. Pence has since decried Trump as “wrong then and wrong now.”
In March, Pence mentioned he wouldn’t endorse Trump for president however fell in need of a proper endorsement of Harris: “It should come as no surprise that I will not be endorsing Donald Trump this year.”
The refrain of voices—from ex-aides to navy leaders—paints a disturbing image of who Trump actually is and what a second Trump time period may entail. Monster, traitorous, unfit.
