Instances of Crypto-Transgression #8: On 'The Apprentice' and Portraiture, Part 3, by Adam Lehrer

In the second part of this two part film analysis, Adam discusses Ali Abbasi's Trump biopic and finds in it a perhaps accidentally flattering portrait, plus commentary on Roy Cohn and Andy Warhol

Furthermore, The Apprentice is simultaneously a portrait of an extraordinary man who truly believed in himself, but also in the extraordinary man who believed in the extraordinary man. Indeed, Jeremy Strong is absolutely incredible as Trump’s lawyer, friend and mentor Roy Cohn, and the film asserts their bond as one that is not only aspirational, but also touching. Like Trump, Cohn was a deeply weird guy who did not give a fuck. His principles were honor, winning, and AMERICA, and his values shaped Trump both as a businessman and as a political leader. Perhaps the film is hoping we condemn Trump for this harsh position, but many of us won’t. We will see in this depiction of Trump’s tutelage beneath Cohn the qualities which make great American leaders: ruthless, relentless, and utterly committed to the American dream.

The film opens in 1973 and Donald has just been admitted to an exclusive social club. He chats up a beautiful young woman (who looks suspiciously like Melania), points out the many powerful people in the room, and brags that he’s the youngest person admitted to the club. The woman questions Donald’s obsession with status, but he gives her a good, reasoned response.

“I’m interested in people,” he says. “It helps me in my business.”

Ever the people person, Trump is then called over to the private dining room of none other than Roy Cohn, the controversial rock star defense attorney and closeted homosexual who finds Donald attractive. Trump is so impressed by Cohn’s influence over and good standing with the other powerful men in the room, that he begins to insist that Roy represent him and his father’s company in a renters dispute backed by the NAACP. After the meeting, we get to see Trump during his hardhat days of walking apartment to apartment to collect rent with difficult tenants who refuse to pay, while having his business ideas struck down by his father Fred on making decisions that would elevate the Trump brand to global behemoth and New York icon status. He goes back to Roy, and this time insists that Roy be his lawyer. Roy says he will, but that Donald, a lifelong teetotaler (Trump’s fraught relationship with his older alcoholic brother Freddie is also part of the film’s plot), must agree to drink with him. They then bond over vodka, and a genuine and even sweet friendship forms between them. When Donald gets sick from the booze, Roy tells his down low boyfriend to go check up on him.

“I like this kid,” says Roy to his “assistant” and obvious lover.

Roy, who had already become a legend for subverting powerful leftist machines while working for Joe McCarthy and then as a defense lawyer for Mafiosos, the New York Roman Catholic Archdiocese, Steve Rubell, and others, then teaches Donald the ropes. Winning, says Roy to his young pupil, has three major rules:

1. Attack, attack, attack
2. Deny everything
3. Always claim victory, and never accept defeat