Trump and the Celebrity Apprentice

The “blue wave” took too much attention away from our president. As a result, he took to Truth Social to publicly offer the White House press secretary role (which seemingly no one wants) to UFC President Dana White. Will White accept? Did Trump pick him because he confused him with another White, in a Four Seasons Landscaping-styled mix-up? Or did he pick him because “White House Press Secretary White” is funny to say? We’ll talk about that later on in the newsletter. But first, look at this cool graphic about subscribing to our newsletter!

After a long fall of complaining about how warm it is outside, followed by complaining about how quickly it got cold outside, Mari and I finally got around to starting this season of the Great British Bake Off. As someone who had grown quite fond of judge Prue Leith (I think she was better than Mary Berry! There, I said it!), I was quite worried about new judge Nigella Lawson.

Here was yet another British person I knew nothing about, even though all of Britain has a deep decades-long knowledge and relationship with them. But, just as I gave Noel Fielding a chance when he first appeared on the show, I began watching with an open mind.

Dear reader, I think Nigella is terrific. She brings all the expertise, of course. But she also brings something that no other judge on the show has really brought before, a concept that I think most of Britian (sorry, Britain) is not entirely familiar with: emotional intelligence. It’s okay to show your feelings, Nigella says in the second episode. She even makes a point to say food shouldn’t be “naughty.” We should enjoy it!

In some ways, the charm of this show is that everyone’s emotions are so repressed that you can taste the tension on screen, but after this many seasons, I think it’s okay to not hide our feelings and emotions. Credit to Noel, Alison, and previous hosts for already incorporating kindness in earlier seasons, but this seems to be the first judge who can provide both clear criticism and sincere empathy. Nigella is a great addition.

If I may make a complaint: the “American cookie” challenge was enough reason to declare another American Revolution against Britain, symbolically.

Another weekend, another bakery in Kansas City. Soon, they’re going to have to keep opening bakeries in the KC metropolitan area to keep this section of the newsletter alive. But if I run out, I’ll just start ranking the Starbucks in Kansas City, L.A., New York and in D.C. (as a former Starbucks barista, I have firm opinions about every Starbucks I’ve ever been to).

This last Saturday, we went to Morning Rounds for the first time. The aptly named bakery is 10% off for those working in the medical community. As a weirdo making funny online political videos, I happily paid full price for just about every baked good on the menu.

The croissant was delicious. Both their cookies? Outstanding and American — much better than whatever they were making on Bake Off.

But the real star of the show was their English muffins, which you can have with butter, jam, and/or as part of a breakfast sandwich. These were the real deal, folks. Baked fresh in-house, I don’t know that I’ve ever had as good an English muffin. I was ready to Paul Hollywood handshake anyone in sight.

I’m slowly ranking the bakeries and cafes in my head. Once we have more under our belt, I’ll actually publish the ranking. For now, know that Morning Rounds is sitting right near the top.

I’m returning to my stomping grounds of a decade to accept the White House press secretary job co-emcee the ICFJ Awards Dinner on Tuesday night. Unlike my early adulthood, I plan on sleeping normal hours and thus avoiding the magnetic pull of Wonderland Ballroom and all of U Street. I’ll instead focus on making some fun videos while there.

Children, gather ’round. I’d like to tell you about the Before Times. When politics mostly took a backseat to your day-to-day life. The Real World was our trashy reality TV, not whatever was happening in Washington, D.C. Sure, there were political scandals and people really liked ascribing “-gate” to the end of any of those scandals, serious or otherwise. But being American mostly meant having the luxury (and privilege) of not having to pay attention to the daily whims of an increasingly unhinged president and his fascist tendencies. 

There was another reality show in the Before Times that many of us watched, even if many of us won’t admit to it now. Not Survivor. I will always admit to that personal obsession of mine. No, it was The Apprentice, a show that wouldn’t have existed without Survivor.

Following the success of his competitive reality TV mega-hit, Survivor producer Mark Burnett developed The Apprentice for NBC. The weekly, heavily edited hour-long show had two major goals. The first? Entertain people. The second was to create the illusion that Donald Trump, a racist businessman who had already filed bankruptcy several times, was actually an incredible businessman whose shrewd, often dramatic decisions on the show were all calculated and actually genius.

Should the contestant who made a glaring mistake in this week’s made-up task be fired? Or should this week’s team leader, who oversaw the team and allowed for this mistake to happen, be fired? What if, this one time, we bent the rules and both of them were fired? Anything could happen! This was The Donald’s world and, whether people will admit this now or not, we ate that shit UP.

In the Before Times, I watched at least a couple seasons of the show, week to week. I didn’t know anything about Trump’s past, that he and his father had been sued for discriminating against Black people in their apartment buildings. I didn’t know about all the failed casinos. I didn’t know about Trump University, Trump Steaks, the Trump Shuttle, Trump Vodka, Trump Mortgage, or Trump Magazine — many of which were launched on the heels of The Apprentice’s success but quickly folded. This was just a dude on TV that made people do funny, sometimes embarrassing tasks in New York, then fired them in a board room with two random people on his side, who seemed to also have some authority.

Then, over time, the show began to lose viewership. The Apprentice was seemingly canceled in 2007. What happened is still somewhat unclear, but it appears that the writers strike resurrected it.

Like a dead bear found on the side of the road by RFK Jr., it returned to New York with a slightly different look. Now, it was The Celebrity Apprentice. Some of our nation’s best and brightest competed on the show. Tom Green! Dennis Rodman! Survivor season one winner Richard Hatch, after he got out of jail the first time but right before going back to jail!

Here, as we head into the fourth quarter of Trump’s time as president, we are entering the Celebrity Apprentice stage. Anything goes. Nothing makes sense. Dana White as White House press secretary? Sure. Unless, as theorized by the internet, the Heritage Foundation has recommended an actually qualified candidate, Dana W. White, who had previously served as the Pentagon chief spokesperson. But isn’t that a fun cliffhanger? Tune in next week to find out if there’s any truth to that theory!

And what show isn’t complete without a true villain? I’m talking a guy that no one on the show likes. Someone who charisma-vacuums every room he’s in. A guy who consistently seems to borrow political tactics straight from the Third Reich. It’s … Stephen Miller, the new White House chief of staff! Is the show running out of new ideas, bringing in someone this cartoonishly evil to run the White House? Maybe. But the ratings were not good last week, so we needed to shake things up. 

Of course, American politics is not just for our entertainment. What happens there directly impacts Americans and the rest of the world. We’ve got a long two years ahead of us. I hope that when it’s over, we can go back to the separation of reality TV and state, as our Founding Fathers intended — or would’ve intended if they ever saw The Apprentice.

I brought back the “arch” bit in Friday’s video. And someone on Bluesky really ran with it. Thank you, user MidnightMinute. Your work has not gone unnoticed.

This might be my personal favorite: