Donald Trump has thought about trying to pull off the ultimate TV ratings grabber — staging "The Apprentice" from the White House.
The bombshell claim comes from Vanity Fair's Sarah Ellison, whose sources say when Trump first mulled a run for president in 2011, he and NBCUniversal chief executive Steve Burke discussed "on the off chance that he won, he would continue to star in 'The Apprentice' from within the White House."
And in conversations with his son-in-law Jared Kushner, Trump "talked about the electorate as an audience," Ellison added in an interview on WNYC Radio's "The Takeaway."
"Once he started to get some success in his primary campaign, people around him said well could we make some money off of this," she continued, noting the plan included bringing "The Apprentice" into the Oval Office.
"The idea was you couldn't do it during the campaign because of the equal time laws but once you were in the White House it was a possibility you could certainly do it … Then we really would be with a 'Truman Show' reality.''
Ellison was referring to the 1998 comedy starring Jim Carrey about a man who becomes the unsuspecting star of a reality TV show aired live 24 hours a day.
NBCUniversal and Trump have since severed business ties.
But in the event he does become president, it raises the specter of the billionaire real-estate tycoon once again bellowing, "You're fired!" — but this time from 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.
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