Now You, and Donald Trump, Can Rewatch ‘The Apprentice’ on Prime Video
March 10, 2025
Donald Trump has made no promise that his economic policies, including seismic tariffs against America’s trade allies, won’t cause a recession. But he has vowed to spend his second term as president rewatching himself on TV.
Prime Video announced Monday that seven seasons of Trump’s hit NBC reality-competition series will soon be available to stream on its platform. Each season of the show, which helped reform Trump’s public profile and paved the way for his first presidential campaign, will be released weekly, with season one premiering March 10. Subsequent seasons will roll out every following Monday through April 27.
“I look forward to watching this show myself—such great memories, and so much fun, but most importantly, it was a learning experience for all of us!” Trump himself said in a statement attached to the announcement.
Questions loom about why Prime Video has chosen to stream The Apprentice now, more than 20 years after its 2004 premiere. (It previously became available to stream on Tubi in 2019, but seems to have left that service by 2021.) Perhaps the decision has something to do with the president’s relationship with Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, who attended Trump’s inauguration in January alongside other tech billionaires. That same month, Prime Video licensed an upcoming documentary about first lady Melania Trump.
Then there is Apprentice executive producer Mark Burnett, who was appointed special envoy to the United Kingdom by Trump in December. A majority stake in Burnett’s production company was acquired by MGM Studios, now owned by Amazon, in 2014, giving Bezos’s company the rights to The Apprentice. “The Apprentice is one of the best shows that I ever produced,” Burnett said in a statement. “The charismatic onscreen presence of President Donald J. Trump made it a bona fide hit! Now, thanks to Prime Video, a whole new audience will experience a new season every Monday.”
Trump filmed The Apprentice and its subsequent spin-off, The Celebrity Apprentice, until 2015, when NBC fired Trump after he made offensive comments about Mexican immigrants during his first presidential campaign announcement. “At NBC, respect and dignity for all people are cornerstones of our values,” the company said in a statement at the time. Trump responded by doubling down in a statement that said he stood by “his statements on illegal immigration.” He added: “NBC is weak, and like everybody else trying to be politically correct.” Trump was replaced as host for the final season of The Celebrity Apprentice by actor turned California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger.
The Apprentice’s long-lasting impact has troubled some who worked on the original series, including former NBC chief marketing officer John Miller—who told Vanity Fair last fall that without the show, Trump never would have been able to run for president. “He didn’t have a real company. It was basically a loose collection of LLCs. They’d been bankrupt four times and twice more when we were filming the show. The Apprentice helped him survive that,” Miller said. “People thought he would be a good president because I made him seem like a legitimate businessman.”
Search
RECENT PRESS RELEASES
Related Post