Trump hits 'The Apprentice' with cease-and-desist, seeks to block release
A lawyer for former President Trump sent a cease-and-desist letter Friday to filmmakers behind the new biopic “The Apprentice" after its debut at the Cannes Film Festival earlier this week.
Trump's team is seeking to block release of "The Apprentice" and tells the filmmakers to “cease and desist from all marketing, distribution, and publication of the Movie,” which stars “Captain America: The Winter Soldier” star Sebastian Stan as a younger Trump and "Succession" actor Jeremy Strong as famed attorney Roy Cohn, according to the letter, obtained by The Hill Friday.
The news was first reported on by Variety,
“The Movie presents itself as a factual biography of Mr. Trump, yet nothing could be further from the truth,” reads the letter from Trump attorney David Warrington to director Ali Abbasi and screenwriter Gabriel Sherman.
“It is a concoction of lies that repeatedly defames President Trump and constitutes direct foreign interference in America’s elections,” the letter reportedly said. “If you do not immediately cease and desist all distribution and marketing of this libelous farce, we will be forced to pursue all appropriate legal remedies.”
In a statement to Variety, the film's producers called it "a fair and balanced portrait of the former president."
“We want everyone to see it and then decide," they said.
Trump campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung had previously threatened to sue over the movie, calling it “pure malicious defamation” and saying it “should not see the light of day, and doesn’t even deserve a place in the straight-to-DVD section of a bargain bin at a soon-to-be-closed discount movie store, it belongs in a dumpster fire."
“We will be filing a lawsuit to address the blatantly false assertions from these pretend filmmakers,” Cheung said in a statement to The Hill. “This garbage is pure fiction which sensationalizes lies that have been long debunked. As with the illegal Biden Trials, this is election interference by Hollywood elites, who know that President Trump will retake the White House and beat their candidate of choice because nothing they have done has worked.”
A representative for The Dhillon Law Group, the firm Warrington is a member of, directed The Hill to a spokesperson for the Trump campaign.
The Hill has reached out to Trump's lawyers and campaign and "The Apprentice" filmmakers for further comment.
The movie reportedly received an eight-minute standing ovation after it debuted at Cannes.