It’s a mentality I got here to grasp intimately whereas interviewing him, beginning in 2021 after he’d left the White Home, for a guide on “The Apprentice.” Mr. Trump gave me hours of his time, typically extending our scheduled conferences at Trump Tower as we watched clips of the present collectively. I discerned that, in some ways, Mr. Trump sees his runs for president and his time within the White Home as extensions of his actuality present. In our conversations, he appeared engrossed by his personal picture and the trivialities of his TV profession, way over by something he achieved as chief of the free world.
His expertise internet hosting “The Apprentice” informs how he views the world and the way he makes his choices. He typically talked about job candidates when it comes to “central casting,” channeling the spirit of a producer assembling a film solid. For the present, Mr. Trump would cease by casting calls to satisfy 1000’s of contestants, and he advised me he believed that he may establish star energy just by the best way somebody regarded. That perspective helps clarify what he’s searching for in a V.P.: the power to generate headlines and immediate the type of drama that ensures his viewers gained’t look away.
On this worldview, loyalty is every part. Mr. Trump cherished speaking to me about Joan Rivers, one in all his favourite “Celeb Apprentice” winners, who publicly spoke of him fondly and credited him with reviving her profession after her time on the present in 2009. Celeb can be a elementary qualification. He advised me that within the White Home he thought-about calling on Dennis Rodman, the previous N.B.A. star and “Celeb Apprentice” contestant, for assist in navigating international diplomacy, as he admired how Mr. Rodman had constructed a detailed relationship with Kim Jong-un, the North Korean dictator. Mr. Trump additionally introduced the “Apprentice” contestant and infamous onscreen troublemaker Omarosa Manigault Newman with him to D.C. as a political adviser. “Loads of issues I do in life, I do as an experiment,” he advised me, when explaining the Omarosa choice. “I imply, I do it out of human curiosity — simply to see who’s loyal, who’s not loyal.”
The “experiment” Mr. Trump is conducting is how he can maintain our consideration. He was taught by Hollywood that one certain approach to get renewed is to maintain viewers guessing and fire up drama. That mentality is clear in his seek for a vice chairman. It’s been reported that Marco Rubio, who’s spent his nationwide political profession representing Florida within the Senate, could be requested to maneuver out of state largely as a gesture to show his loyalty to Mr. Trump. There’s some debate over whether or not the Structure bars each members of the ticket from being registered to vote in the identical state, and whereas Mr. Trump may simply change his residence to Trump Tower or Bedminster, N.J., pressuring Mr. Rubio to relocate could be the last word loyalty take a look at.
Then once more, to college students of “The Apprentice,” it might sound unlikely he’d choose the person he as soon as derided as “Little Marco.” Mr. Trump typically appeared to purposefully string alongside a candidate as a crimson herring in among the present’s seasons, as when he stored Gary Busey hanging across the boardroom previous the purpose of plausibility.
