John D. Miller, the former chief marketing officer for NBCUniversal, apologized for doing “irreparable harm by creating the false image of [Donald] Trump as a successful leader.”
“I deeply regret that. And I regret that it has taken me so long to go public,” Miller wrote in an essay for U.S. News & World Report.
Miller reflected on how “The Apprentice,” for which Miller led the marketing, created a false “narrative that Trump was a super-successful businessman who lived like royalty.”
“In fact, Trump declared business bankruptcy four times before the show went into production, and at least twice more during his 14 seasons hosting,” he wrote, adding that the boardroom where Trump famously told contestants, “You’re fired,” was a set because “[Trump’s] real boardroom was too old and shabby for TV.”
Miller also described how Trump had no issues with lying—repeatedly.
“He thought he could simply say something over and over, and eventually people would believe it,” Miller wrote, saying that Trump would claim “The Apprentice” was the No. 1 show on TV when it wasn’t and after he’d been told it wasn’t. “He didn’t like being fact-checked back then either,” Miller added.
Miller worked closely with Trump for over a decade, but he’s not the only former ally who’s turned on Trump. Those with the rare perspective of knowing what Trump behind closed doors have been warning Americans of his danger.
Americans are less than three weeks away from finding out if the country will again be led by a wannabe autocrat. And Trump very well may be elected in November. Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris holds only a 2.4-percentage-point lead over Trump, according to 538’s national polling average. The site’s presidential forecast gives Harris and Trump about equal odds of winning the Electoral College.
The tight race has former Trump aides like Sarah Matthews speaking out against him.
Matthews, a former Trump White House spokesperson, testified before Congress about the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. More recently, she told CNN that if Trump were elected to a second term, “competency and experience” would be “out the window.”
In 2023, John Kelly, Trump’s former chief of staff, called him “a person that has no idea what America stands for and has no idea what America is all about,” adding, “God help us.”
Mark Esper, Trump’s former defense secretary, reiterated in a CNN interview on Monday that Trump had urged him to use military intervention to shoot peaceful protesters in summer 2020.
“President Trump has learned the key is getting people around you that will do your bidding, who will not push back, who will implement what you want to do,” said Esper. “I think he’s talked about that. His acolytes have talked about that. I think loyalty will be the first litmus test.”
John Bolton, Trump’s former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, came out against him in a new edition of his memoir, “The Room Where It Happened,” released in January. In it, he wrote, "Trump is unfit to be president," adding, "If his first four years were bad, a second four will be worse."
Arguably, the most blunt remarks came from retired Gen. Mark Milley, the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who called Trump “fascist to the core.”
“No one has ever been as dangerous to this country as Donald Trump,” Milley told journalist Bob Woodward, in Woodward’s latest book, “War.”
“Now I realize he’s a total fascist,” Milley said. “He is the most dangerous person to this country.”
Trump’s former lawyer Michael Cohen, who admitted to paying off Stormy Daniels ahead of the 2016 election, once said he’d “take a bullet for Trump.” However, Cohen has also turned on Trump, calling him a “traitorous bastard who doesn’t give a fuck about anyone or anything other than himself.”
“The man makes absolutely no sense. He’s a complete and total danger to our democratic republic in every way, shape, and form,” Cohen said on his “Political Beatdown” podcast on Thursday.
Then there’s former Vice President Mike Pence. As one of Trump’s most loyal sycophants in his first term, Pence seems to have changed after Jan. 6. It took Trump more than three hours to call off a violent mob chanting “Hang Mike Pence” due to Pence’s job certifying the election victory of now-President Joe Biden. Pence has since decried Trump as “wrong then and wrong now.”
In March, Pence said he would not endorse Trump for president but fell short of a formal endorsement of Harris: “It should come as no surprise that I will not be endorsing Donald Trump this year.”
The chorus of voices—from ex-aides to military leaders—paints a disturbing picture of who Trump really is and what a second Trump term could entail. Monster, traitorous, unfit.
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