I’ve always respected Penn Jillette – one half of Penn & Teller – as a magician, storyteller, sleight-of-hand con man and a celebrity. I guess I’ve never paid much attention to his politics, but as it turns out, he’s quite politically minded. Jillette sat down with Vulture (NY Magazine) for one of their long-read interviews – you can read the full piece here, and I would recommend it. He talks at length about magic, how people can still believe in magic and be fooled by magic, how female magicians are on the come up and they’re dismantling the “boys club” magician community, and about politics. Penn appeared on Celebrity Apprentice one season, and he confirms that there are tapes of Trump saying all kinds of offensive sh-t. Some highlights of that section of the interview:
Whether Mark Burnett has tapes of Trump saying racist stuff: “Yeah, I was in the room…Oh, yeah.”
Whether Penn will repeat what Trump said specifically: “No. If Donald Trump had not become president, I would tell you all the stories. But the stakes are now high and I am an unreliable narrator. What I do, as much as anything, is I’m a storyteller. And storytellers are liars. So I can emotionally tell you things that happened racially, sexually, and that showed stupidity and lack of compassion when I was in the room with Donald Trump and I guarantee you that I will get details wrong. I would not feel comfortable talking about what I felt I saw in that room — because when I was on that show I was sleeping four to five hours a night. I was uncomfortable.”
What Trump said, paraphrased by Penn: “He would say racially insensitive things that made me uncomfortable. I don’t think he ever said anything in that room like “African-Americans are inferior” or anything about rape or grabbing women, but of those two hours every other day in a room with him, every ten minutes was fingernails on chalkboard. He would ask one cast member if he’d rather have sex with this woman or that woman…. So when it came to think about supporting him for president, I digested that information from being on the show with him and said, “Absolutely not. He would be a terrible president.” And because I’d been around him and some people cared what I thought, I said that publicly every chance I got — while also saying he’s a good reality show. You want someone capricious and petty and narcissistic to be on your reality show. And boy, I hate to say this, but playing tapes of him doing that job might be unfair. I want those tapes to be used against him, but it might be unfair.
He doesn’t respect Trump: “I can’t stress this enough: I do not respect Donald Trump. Don Junior said — and I’m proud of this — that of everybody who had been on Celebrity Apprentice, I was the one who enjoyed it the most. By the way, I didn’t enjoy it. And I was also the one who liked his father the most… I like people when they don’t have filters. I like Tiny Tim. I like Bob Dylan. I like Neil Young. I like Sun Ra. I love the Beat poets. Which means if I’m in a room with Trump I’m happy to hear him talk. But I’m also happy to hear Charlie Manson talk. I have nothing good to say about Donald Trump as president.
I think I understand what he’s saying – he had a somewhat good time on Celebrity Apprentice because he respected the awful qualities that made Trump a “good” reality star. But he knows that Trump is a terrible human being and an awful president. And yes, lordy, of course there are tapes of all of this. Why has this been allowed to simmer for two and a half years? Mark Burnett has the tapes. Mark Burnett has all of the tapes. Why not release them?
Photos courtesy of WENN.
Mark Burnett received a large sum of money out of the inauguration coffers. He was bought off.
Precisely this. And Republicans have nothing more to say on the matter.
Because Mark Burnett is a religious Republican in Hollywood and has been for years. He produced Touched By an Angel with Della Reese and Roma Downey. It was so popular, and he made a ton of money. He married Downey, and they live a quiet Christian life in Hollywood producing bland shows that appeal to mass audiences.
Someone who supports and protects people who treat women and minorities as inferior, as jokes, as less than, is not living a quiet Christian life. There is nothing Christian about that.
Amen.
Yea…Burnett showed his TRUE colors when he did that Biblical mini-series a couple of years ago and got a POTUS Obama look-alike to portray Satan….You show me a rich, uber Christian person…and I will show you someone who will doubt the existence of G-d based on that Christians’ actions…
Oh right, Mark Burnett and his immigrant wife.
I kind of get his point about how it would be unfair to release the tapes when Trump was a reality star because he was playing a character. (And I would agree that he was to a certain extent at least because we know now that he is incapable of firing anyone to their face.) But he wasn’t entirely playing a character, and even if he were just playing a big bad CEO on a reality show…..it doesn’t follow that he would use racial slurs. I would be willing to sort of buy that excuse for some other comments (MAYBE) but you don’t use that word because you are “playing a part.”
He’s not PLAYING A PART. He’s a racist who was punished for his racism starting in the 1970s.
He was a public figure then, too, and chai35 makes the point that he was not playing a part. Maybe reality TV has become more ‘enhanced’ or heightened reality over time, seeming more scripted, but Trump’s trash talk as heard by Jillette was behind the scenes.
Jillette would listen to Charles Manson? OK then.
These were comments that he made freely and had to be edited out of the show.
That’s not playing a part and even if it was, the part he was playing wasn’t that of a racist businessman you know? He was supposed to be the tough-but-fair no-nonsense business magnate. The script certainly didn’t call for the n-word or any other racist profanities.
He could be caught on tape saying that all black and brown people should die, and his supporters would still excuse it by saying “He’s changed”
You just don’t understand his humor!
Exactly at this point his supporters are either openly racist or willing to accept the racism for whatever reason (stubbornness, low taxes etc.)
I think the only thing that would work is if he was caught making some unmistakably derogatory remark about white middle America. Which isn’t impossible, I mean he must have insulted people poorer than him at some point, right?
ITA. They’d say, “But that was when he was just in his 60’s, he’s matured now!”
Mark Burnett probably loves Trump. Remember when Burnett & his wife, Roma Downey, did that ridiculous bible mini-series and cast an Obama-kinda-look-alike as Satan? Yeah, that’s what type of people they are.
Besides, I’m sure Burnett already took his mafia wanna-be loyalty initiation to the “Big Don” as well. 🙄
Don Cheadle also has a story about Donald Trump saying racist things on the golf course. Former Trump Casino president John O’Donnell says Trump is racist. Tom Arnold has heard the “n-word” tapes. He’s a racist. End of discussion. The problem is that so many people don’t care.
Trump’s policies (McConnell’s policies, Ryan’s policies, Cabinet policies, REPUBLICAN POLICIES) are 99.99% racist. Trump’s history is one of racism. We don’t need the N-word to confirm it, though fine … let the playing of tapes begin.
From a legal standpoint, more interested in recordings with Russians in the Oval Office.
Why is this news? The American public voted for an openly racist president. This is the platform he ran on and nearly 50% of the voting public wanted this. America wants racism. It’s sad, but true. Why look at your own problems when you can blame someone else?
Yeah I remember reading that Mark Burnett is a hardcore Republican. I remember that Mark Burnett himself had gone on the record to say he will never release any kind of defamatory footage of Trump from The Apprentice, that’s nothing new as you can see from this article from October 2016: https://www.usatoday.com/story/life/tv/2016/10/12/mark-burnett-reiterates-hes-not-giving-up-trump-tapes/91975652/
His BS reason being “confidentiality reasons” and that MGM owns The Apprentice now. But guess who is the Chairman of MGM Television? Mark Burnett. He says he’s not a Trump supporter but I don’t think anybody believes him. He doesn’t want to release the tapes simply because he doesn’t want to. Because he’d rather continue being friends with Trump than get on his bad side.
What’s more interesting is that the tapes have not been destroyed.
Ladies and gentlemen, NBC sucks and should just be on permanent boycott.
The tapes would change nothing.
Noooo! “Making It” is my happy place while our country goes to hell.
Is the rumor true that Ronan Farrow is working on a hit piece about NBC? They wouldn’t let him go with the Harvey Weinstein info. That’s why he went to the New Yorker with it. Let’s see what comes out about NBC in the near future.