In the dark months following the Jan. 6 attack, Donald J. Trump opened up to an entertainment journalist, revealing his fixation with celebrity, acceptance, and the TV show that made him. It was May 2021, and Donald J. Trump was wounded. Four months earlier, his supporters had ransacked the Capitol. He had departed Washington, disgraced, defeated, and twice impeached. His party had abandoned him, however temporarily, and he’d been kicked off his social media accounts. He holed up inside Trump Tower and stewed.
An entertainment journalist named Ramin Setoodeh came knocking. He told Mr. Trump he wanted to write a book, not about the unpleasantness of the previous four years, but about that prelapsarian period before Mr. Trump entered politics. Then, he was merely the star of “The Apprentice,” the reality TV show that aired on NBC beginning in 2004 and “changed television,” as Mr. Setoodeh put it to the former president.
Mr. Trump was sold. He granted the reporter several long, recorded interviews. “He was at his lowest then,” Mr. Setoodeh, 42, said over lunch in Manhattan’s West Village on Friday. “I think talking about ‘The Apprentice’ allowed him to feel comfort.”
Mr. Trump became so excited about the book that he offered to promote it at his rallies, saying that the merchants who follow his traveling roadshow would help peddle it. “You’ll sell 10,000 books at one rally,” he told Mr. Setoodeh. “Let’s see how this works out.”
Not well, as it turns out — at least for Mr. Trump. “Apprentice in Wonderland,” published Tuesday, depicts its subject as a lonely and sometimes dotty man, longing for the days when he was still accepted by his fellow celebrities, even as he seems to crave political power. One minute he’s bragging that Joan Rivers voted for him in 2016 (she died in 2014); the next he’s excusing himself to go deal with “the whole thing with the Afghanistan,” as he told Mr. Setoodeh, who happened to be interviewing him the week President Biden was pulling U.S. troops out of the country. It was unclear what Mr. Trump meant.
This insightful book sheds light on Trump’s vulnerabilities and his desperate need for validation and acceptance. It offers a glimpse into his mindset during a challenging period in his life, revealing his longing for the days when he was a beloved figure in the entertainment industry. Despite his attempts to regain his former glory through the promotion of the book, it seems that his political ambitions and controversies continue to overshadow his past successes.
The revelations in “Apprentice in Wonderland” provide a fascinating look at the inner workings of a man who has always been in the spotlight, yet struggles with feelings of loneliness and disconnect from his former life. As readers delve into the pages of this book, they are confronted with a complex portrait of a public figure grappling with his own insecurities and desires.