June 5, 2024
The Trump campaign issued a fiery response to the buzzy biopic "The Apprentice," which debuted at Cannes, but the director of the film isn't fazed. By: K Dass.
US - The Trump campaign has threatened legal action
against the filmmakers behind the biopic film The Apprentice. Following
the movie’s premiere at the Cannes Film Festival, a spokesperson for the 45th
president’s campaign declared their intention to sue the filmmakers.
According to Steven
Cheung, a spokesperson for Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign, the film
contains “blatantly false assertions” and is “pure fiction” that sensationalises
debunked lies.
The movie portrays
Donald Trump’s early years in the real estate business and features Sebastian
Stan as Trump, Jeremy Strong as Roy Cohn, and Maria Bakalova as Trump’s first
wife, Ivana Trump. Notably, the film includes a scene where Trump rapes Ivana Trump,
although Ivana Trump herself later clarified that she used the term “rape” in a
non-literal sense during a divorce deposition.
Despite the threat of
a lawsuit, the director of The Apprentice, Ali Abbasi, remains unfazed.
During a press conference at the Cannes Film Festival, Abbasi responded to the
campaign’s lawsuit threat by saying, “Everybody talks about (Trump) suing a lot
of people. They don’t talk about his success rate, though.” Abbasi suggested
that Trump should watch the movie for himself and offered to meet with him to
discuss its context after a screening. It seems the legal battle over the
film’s portrayal of Trump’s life is far from over.