Trump campaign vows to sue ‘Apprentice’ filmmakers over then-real estate mogul’s rape scene of Ivana Trump

Already battling dozens of indictments and an ongoing secret trial in New York, Donald Trump wants to return to court over the film that took Cannes by storm today.

“We will be taking legal action to address the blatantly false claims made by these fake filmmakers,” Steven Cheung of the Trump campaign said Monday. The apprentice film by director Ali Abbasi. Depicting the rise of Trump (Sebastian Stan) out of his father’s shadow thanks to the well-connected and ruthless Roy Cohn (Jeremy Strong), the film has just debuted in the south of France to a standing ovation of 11 minutes.

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“This bullshit is pure fiction that sensationalizes lies that have long been debunked,” spokesperson Cheung said of the Competition film. “As with the illegal Biden 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 did not work. »

Among the many incidents from Trump’s beginnings in the 1970s and 1980s to his The art of the market fame, there is a scene in the film of the past and potentially future president raping his then-wife, Ivana (Maria Bakalova). The first former Mrs. Trump, who died in 2022, had spoken out about the sexual assault in the years after the couple’s divorce, but later recanted the incident in the decades before her death.

The apprentice also has a rather graphic take on Stan’s Trump receiving a hair treatment for his emerging baldness and liposuction for his emerging girth. As has been said for decades in Trumpland, there are also popping pills – in this case amphetamines.

Deadline’s Pete Hammond called The apprentice “convincing” in his criticism today, but Trump 2024 simply seems compelled to want to drive the painting into the ground.

“This ‘movie’ is pure malicious slander, should not see the light of day, and does not even deserve a place in the direct-to-DVD section of a bargain bin at a soon-to-be-closed discount movie store,” Cheung said. “It belongs in a dumpster fire.”

Of course, The apprentice is far from the first depiction of Trump, his family, his acolytes and their supposedly underhanded ways to appear on the big or small screen. It is also worth noting that Trump and his acolytes threaten to sue his critics or detractors at any time – a move straight out of the Roy Cohn playbook. Even when the old Celebrity Apprentice the host continues, he just as often quietly retracts the action or lets it die down the line.

RELATED: “Where’s My Roy Cohn?” Review: Documentary about a ruthless New York lawyer shows his chilling influence beyond the grave

In this context, it was considered a virtual certainty that Trump would attack The apprentice with legal anger – whether he files something, well, that’s a whole different matter.

What we do know is that with the prosecution having finished its trial on Monday and a defense witness having testified, Donald Trump will be back in Judge Juan Merchan’s courtroom in Manhattan on Tuesday. Whether or not it crosses the line into the impending gag order – again – is to be determined.

Due to the lack of a distributor for the moment in this election year, The apprentice is sold in Cannes by CAA, WME and Rocket Science.

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