Presidential Debate #3: Donald Trump, the Emmys clash over ‘rigged’ voting, ‘The Apprentice’
Following the latest Presidential Debate, the last thing that we expected we’d be having a conversation about is the Emmys, and Donald Trump’s perception that they are rigged because of “The Celebrity Apprentice” not winning for Reality Competition Show.
First of all, let’s start with this: We actually do love “The Celebrity Apprentice” in an ironic fashion. It was glorious entertainment for much of its run, mostly because it was an arbitrary, silly conversation led by a guy who thought it was the equivalent of the Olympics in terms of seriousness. The firings had almost no merit, the celebrities were often desperate for airtime, and at one point Trump even fired Maria Kanellis for what was effectively “locker room humor” about Curtis Stone using the bathroom. We never imagined in a billion years that this would become tied to the Presidential election.
We’ve even interviewed Trump about the show before, and he took it very seriously in his responses. To be fair, he was also respectful to the questions we asked.
The thing that is so ridiculous about Trump coming out of this debate is that 1) he actually cared about not winning an Emmy for a train-wreck show and 2) we don’t think he completely understands how the voting process works. There’s no real way of “rigging” something when the job of the voters is to just pick the shows that they want. The Television Academy even spells this out in the tweet below. (Follow the hyperlink, since the picture font is incredibly tiny.) Voters picked the shows they wanted to pick. Maybe they don’t watch “Apprentice,” but that’s their prerogative. “The Amazing Race” won this category for years just because it was easy for voters to digest.
We’re not going to get into politics any further, but we will say this: The Emmy process is frustrating, and in some ways it’s even flawed for underdog shows who are either ignored or not always watched by all of the voters. However, it’s not rigged, and the TV Academy takes that seriously. The real rule with this sort of thing is that the love of the art should be the reason you’re in television in the first place, and if you don’t win, at least you’re getting to work doing what you love. Trump may claim to have mastered “The Art of the Deal,” but we’re not sure he’s figured out anything else in this industry. The “Apprentice” franchise is moving on without him, and it’ll still be entertaining — and maybe the host this time around could be more in on the act. (Photo: Emmys.)