In a newly surfaced recording aired on MSNBC, former President Donald Trump defends his reputation as a “horrible” and “evil” person, attributing it solely to his success in one thing: ratings.
During one of six interviews with Variety editor Ramin Setoodeh, Trump reflected on the impact of “The Apprentice” and its influence on the 2016 election. “If I went back to NBC right now to do something, they would do anything I wanted to do, showbiz-wise. I’m talking about,” Trump asserted in the recording. “Doing a show, anything I wanted to do right now, 100 percent.”
Emphasizing his grasp of the entertainment business, Trump asserted, “One thing I know about, that, business — and I learned that business better than anybody else could learn a business in a short period of time — It’s all about one thing: ratings. If you have ratings, you can be the meanest, most horrible human being in the world. There’s only one thing that matters: ratings. You can be nice, or you can be mean. You can be evil. You can be horrible. You can be crude or elegant. There’s only one thing that matters, and that’s ratings. If you don’t have ratings, it doesn’t matter.”
Setoodeh expressed skepticism regarding Trump’s claims of being courted for a return to television. “I found no evidence of that,” Setoodeh remarked, countering Trump’s suggestion that he was “being wooed to come back to TV.”
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Describing Trump’s demeanor during the interview, Setoodeh observed, “That’s the TV star in him. He wants people to see him as a TV star. A successful TV star, and that’s the philosophy and way in which he views the world and the way he governs. If you could call it governing.”
The revelation of Trump’s candid views offers a glimpse into his perception of success and his focus on ratings as a measure of achievement.
Watch the interview below from MSNBC:
