The View hosts have reacted to the news that Donald Trump Jr. is being eyed to succeed his father as the host of Amazon’s potential reboot of The Apprentice.
Addressing the recent reports during Friday’s episode of the talk show, Joy Behar recalled that President Donald Trump had previously expressed his desire for his daughter, Ivanka, to take over for him as host of the hit reality series, which ran from 2004 through 2017.
Opening up the floor to the rest of the panel, Behar said, “So my question to you is, would Ivanka be a better host? Pick your train wreck.”
Following laughter from the audience, Sunny Hostin quipped that maybe “they can all just go on reality TV and get out of the White House and out of government.”
“I would be very supportive of that,” she said. “I just think one of the reasons why we have Donald Trump in office is because people saw him on The Apprentice and actually believed that he was a good business person, when we know — Joy mentions this all the time — he bankrupted casinos.”
Expanding on that point, Behar referenced the popular gambling phrase, “The house never loses,” adding, “So to bankrupt two casinos, how bad a businessman do you have to be?”
Long before Trump, 79, controversially entered politics in 2015, he was already a well-known New York businessman and real estate tycoon. From 1991 to 2014, he owned several different Atlantic City casinos, including Trump Taj Mahal, Trump Plaza Hotel and Casino and Trump Castle/Marina, in an attempt to build a casino empire. However, after filing for bankruptcy at least four times, he severed ties with all of them.
The Independent has contacted the White House for comment.
“That’s my fear in terms of normalizing and sanitizing this family, if they are chosen to be the host,” Hostin continued, further recalling the 2019 lawsuit against the Donald Trump Foundation, which forced the president to pay $2 million in court-ordered damages to eight different charities for misusing charitable funds.
Sara Haines jumped in, sharing her perspective. “Even looking at the Trump family, as what we know now, just as a TV brand, I think it’s funny they think they can just ‘swapsies.’ It took a unique character that could be mean, and people were like, ‘Whoa’,… we just didn’t know that would become the president,” she joked.
Watch Apple TV+ free for 7 day
New subscribers only. £9.99/mo. after free trial. Plan auto-renews until cancelled.
Try for free
ADVERTISEMENT. If you sign up to this service we will earn commission. This revenue helps to fund journalism across The Independent.
Watch Apple TV+ free for 7 day
New subscribers only. £9.99/mo. after free trial. Plan auto-renews until cancelled.
Try for free
ADVERTISEMENT. If you sign up to this service we will earn commission. This revenue helps to fund journalism across The Independent.
“Just because Don Jr., or whichever one it is, carries the last name, does not mean you just swap out Trumps like they are cards. It doesn’t work that way.”
For more than a decade, Trump famously presided over NBC’s reality series The Apprentice, from 2004 to 2015. The popular series featured a group of contestants competing for a one-year, $250,000 contract to manage one of Trump’s properties.
His commanding presence on the show — along with his catchphrase “You’re fired” — helped fuel his rise to worldwide fame in the 2000s.
NBC ended its relationship with Trump in 2015, a decision which the network attributed to “derogatory statements” he made about immigrants. Trump was replaced as host of the final season by Arnold Schwarzenegger and went on to win the presidency the following year.
