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Screenshot from a recent appearance on CNN where Kwame Jackson (left) and Randal Pinkett debated Trump supporter Andy Dean.
CNN
If there is any way to mathematically stop Donald Trump from having the most delegates at the Republican convention it pretty much has to happen in New York. If the real estate mogul/reality TV star/erstwhile Republican manages to get over 50 percent of the vote in every New York district he’ll score almost 80 of the 95 delegates available. That means only a contested convention will stop him from being the GOP standard bearer. With Ted Cruz stumbling over his own words and John Kasich a non-entity, who can step into New York to bring down the Donald? None other than a group of former Apprentice cast mates, who at great financial and professional risk are sticking their necks out to warn America that Trump isn’t just erratic and a bigot, but that the very skills that make him a good business man would make him a terrible president.
“I spoke out consistently since [Trump] announced his candidacy,” says Randal Pinkett who is now the chairman and CEO of BCT Partners, a consulting firm based on New Jersey. Pinkett has a unique insight into Trump as both an employee and a businessman. He won season 4 of The Apprentice (the first African American to win the show) and worked for Trump directly for years. Nevertheless that didn’t color his views when his former boss announced he was running for president.
“[I was] denouncing him every time. I’ve done more interviews over the last year than at any other time of my life except when I won The Apprentice. But people still come to me and say, ‘But where do you stand?’ So clearly my limited megaphone is not loud enough, so that prompted me to reach out to other apprentices,” Pinkett said.
The alumni of The Apprentice, especially the minorities, are a pretty close group. They’re connected by the experience on the show, in addition to colleges, mutual business partners and clients. Pinkett first reached out to Kwame Jackson, a season one alumnus who is now running Kwame Inc. and consulting PepsiCo on millennial and diversity marketing. Jackson recruited former season 3 cast member Tara Dowdell who runs a socially conscious PR and marketing firm in the greater New York area, and soon others followed. However, it wasn’t easy. Donald Trump is a powerful businessman, he’s threatened former cast mates against speaking ill of him, and in some cases cast members are still financially tied to Trump’s empire.
“There are a number of other Apprentices that declined. I reached out to a number of folks,” said Pinkett. “[I told them] I want to organize a group of us to talk collectively. Are you down or are you not down?”
Eventually six former cast members, (Pinkett, Jackson and Dowdell, plus Marshawn Evans Daniels, Kevin Allen and James Sun), five African American and one Asian American, stood together to denounce Trump’s candidacy for President of the United States. They all describe Trump has having fantastic business skills. Dowdell calls Trump as “complex.” Pinkett says Trump is great at getting people to believe in an idea. But he also has other traits that won’t work so well if he’s trying to run the country, says Jackson.
“Immaturity, petulance, ego and a bombast that are dangerous for the nuclear and terrorism world that we live in,” said Jackson
“This desire to win at all costs may be great in business,” says Dowdell, “but not in government.”
Much of Donald Trump’s campaign narrative is based on the idea that he is a great business person and manager of people. Consequently the views of those who have worked with him and under him over the years are crucial to understanding what kind of man millions of Americans are voting for. While television viewers only saw the clips and the final dramatic scenes of Trump saying “You’re Fired” these men and women worked with Trump for months. Many of them maintaining business dealings with him long after the show. If there’s anyone who knows who Donald Trump is, what he’s capable of and how he’s changed, especially on issues like race and gender, it’s this group.
“The person that I knew then was fair, supported me in my outside projects – he was encouraging – obviously the ego and the bombast was there … but the vitriol, the racism and the sexism and xenophobia – all the things we see now are total Mr. Hyde. That wasn’t the Dr. Jekyll that I met,” says Jackson who is clear that if the Trump of 2016 had been running the apprentice in 2004 he’d have never gone on the show.
“It’s the devaluing of African Americans … that was the turning point for me,” says Dowdell, who like many of the Apprentices noticed a sharp racial turn in Trump’s politics especially once Barack Obama was elected president. “When he asked for Obama’s [college] transcripts, he never asked McCain, or Mitt Romney or anybody else for those. As a black woman who’s qualifications and credentials are always questioned, he’s making a space, he’s validating that kind of bigotry at the highest level.”
Pinkett however saw some of this coming. Trump’s racial micro-aggressions almost cost Pinkett the win in the season 4 finale of The Apprentice and he could see Trump’s true attitudes beneath the surface.
“I had seen shades of racism, dating back to the Central Park jogger and my finale on The Apprentice, and discrimination cases and a lack of diversity in the organization … [But] this is just way beyond anything I could have fathomed from the Donald I worked for and with.”
Omarosa Manigault, probably the most famous Apprentice alumnus, has attacked her fellow alums accusing them of being bitter ex-employees trying to raise their profile by attacking Trump. How does this group view Trump surrogates, especially African American ones like Omarosa?
“They’re lost souls,” says Kwame Jackson. “Those folks are opportunists. Now everyone is an opportunist to some degree, but at what cost? Your self-worth? Your community? Your value? To help a man who is not in favor of our community – to say the least – get elected. I don’t understand.”
If they’re lucky and their collective voices are finally loud enough, maybe some of those lost souls will change their minds about Trump by the time they got to the polls.
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