Donald Trump raged about the new film “The Apprentice” on Monday, calling the movie a “pile of garbage” made by “human scum.”
The former president and GOP presidential nominee was fired up in his early-morning Truth Social post, where he railed against the screenwriter, journalist Gabe Sherman, and hoped that the “fake and classless” film would be a box office bomb.
“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,” Trump wrote in his post, which has a time stamp of 12:48 a.m. EST.
Directed by Ali Abbasi, “The Apprentice” stars Sebastian Stan as a young Trump making a name for himself as a New York real estate developer, with “Succession’s” Jeremy Strong as his mentor Roy Cohn.
Premiering at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, the controversial biopic portrays Trump as an amphetamine-addled slumlord, and includes a scene where he rapes his first wife, Ivana Trump (played by Maria Bakalova).
Appearing to dispute the depiction in his post, Trump called Ivana “a kind and wonderful person,” and said he “had a great relationship with her until the day she died.”
Ivana Trump, a Czech model turned businesswoman, did use the word “rape” to describe an incident detailed in her and Donald’s high-profile 1990s divorce case, but later recanted the allegation. She died in 2022.
In his Truth Social post, Trump attacked Sherman as “the writer of this pile of garbage” and “a lowlife and talentless hack, who has long been widely discredited.” He said Sherman “chose to ignore” what he said were the facts about his and Ivana’s relationship.
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“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,” Trump wrote.
The former president’s legal team tried and failed to block the film’s release earlier this year, leaving “The Apprentice” struggling to find a distributor in the U.S.
And though he was unable to stop the film from hitting theaters, Trump appears to be getting his wish regarding the box office.
“The Apprentice” opened on Friday to weak ticket sales, taking in a meager $1.6 million, according to The Associated Press.
For a full critique of the film, you can read HuffPost’s review.