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It is becoming clearer to election observers that Donald Trump's presidential campaign is less about anything Donald Trump is going on about during any particular day—and more about promoting Donald Trump, the brand. It’s also clear that whether Trump wins the campaign, or gets buried in a landslide so deep the Republican Party will still be digging out of it long after the oceans have swallowed most of Florida? Both of those are less important to Trump than whether he, personally, makes out with a bit of cash afterward.
But if he did win? Oh, the business opportunities! On The Takeaway, Vanity Fair contributing editor Sarah Ellison talks about Trump's plans for the Oval Office, should he be elected. It's all about the ratings, baby.
Host Todd Zwillich: I just want to point out one detail from your story that I think a lot of people missed, it has this fantastical idea that Donald Trump discussed with executives at NBC potentially continuing a version of The Apprentice from the Oval Office, if he were elected. We don't have to give up the show, you can still do this from the White House.
Ellison: Yeah. Yeah. 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's a possibility, you could certainly do it from there. So then we really would be living in a sort of Truman Show reality.
Forget talk of 3 AM phone calls. During busy days, do you think the Joint Chiefs of Staff would have to wait out in the hall while Trump finished taping the day's reality show?