Trump campaign threatens lawsuit over portrayal in ‘The Apprentice’ biopic

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The Trump campaign threatened to sue the filmmakers of The apprenticea biopic about the former president’s early days as a New York real estate developer, calling the film “pure fiction.”

“We will take legal action to address the blatantly false claims made by these fake filmmakers,” Trump campaign chief spokesperson Steven Cheung said in a statement to Variety.

“This garbage is pure fiction that sensationalizes long-debunked lies. As with Biden’s illegal trials, this is election interference by Hollywood elites, who know that President Trump will take back the White House and beat the candidate of his choice because nothing they have It didn’t work.”

The film, directed by Ali Abbasi, stars Sebastian Stan as a young Donald Trump as he rises through the ranks of the business world.

The story centers on his relationships with his first wife, Ivana Trump, and lawyer and fixer Roy Cohn, played by SuccessionIt’s Jeremy Strong.

The independent contacted the producers of The apprentice film to comment.

The biopic reportedly contains a variety of unflattering scenes involving Mr. Trump, featuring him using drugs and undergoing cosmetic surgery.

The most controversial, according to Varietythe film shows Mr. Trump raping Mrs. Trump.

(In a 1989 divorce deposition, Ms. Trump accused Mr. Trump of raping her, but she later disavowed the allegation.)

Members of the Trump campaign aren’t the only ones unhappy with the film’s content.

Dan Snyder, the former owner of the Washington Commanders, reportedly invested in the film through the company Kinematics, but then took issue with the portrayal of Mr. Trump, a personal associate and recipient of various campaign donations.

The apprentice had its public premiere Monday at the Cannes Film Festival in France.

The film reportedly received an eight-minute ovation.

Mr. Abbasi, the director, told the audience that he hoped his film would be “relevant” to the times.

“There is no pleasant metaphorical way to deal with the rising tide of fascism. There is only the complicated path. There is only the mundane way,” he said.

“There’s only one way to deal with this wave on its own terms, on its own level and it’s not going to be pretty, but I think the problem with the world is that good people have been silent for too long . So I think it’s time to make films relevant. It’s time to make cinema political again.