It’s “total bullshit” that producers can’t release tapes from Donald Trump’s reality show “The Apprentice” for contractual reasons, says billionaire media mogul Barry Diller.
“There are no legal obligations,” the IAC chairman told Politico Playbook in an interview published Wednesday. “To who? For what? I mean, the legal obligations are they own the copyright. They can do whatever they want with it.”
On Oct. 7, an unaired clip of Trump’s 2005 visit to “Access Hollywood” upended the GOP presidential nominee’s campaign. It captured Trump bragging to host Billy Bush that he could kiss and grab women without their consent because “when you’re a star, they let you do it.”
Former “Apprentice” producer Bill Pruitt tweeted the next day that when it comes to unaired Trump recordings, “there are far worse.”
But Mark Burnett, the reality show’s producer, claims that he “does not have the ability nor the right to release footage or other material” from “The Apprentice.”
BuzzFeed reported that Burnett is a Trump supporter who threatened his staff with severe legal consequences if they leaked any recordings from the show. Burnett denies that he is preventing the release of the tapes. Burnett issued a statement on Wednesday that he is “not now and have never been a supporter of Donald Trump’s candidacy.” He further stated and he and his wife are appalled by “the hatred, division and misogyny that has been a very unfortunate part of his campaign.”
Diller, a supporter of Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton, told Politico that he isn’t easily shocked, but called Trump’s remarks about groping and sexually assaulting women “so astounding it’s almost beyond belief.”
This story has been updated to include Burnett’s statement.
Editor’s note: Donald Trump regularly incites political violence and is a serial liar, rampant xenophobe, racist, misogynist and birther who has repeatedly pledged to ban all Muslims — 1.6 billion members of an entire religion — from entering the U.S.
