Former President Donald Trump’s campaign clapped back after he was accused of sexually assaulting his ex-wife, Ivana Trump, in a hyped-up film that premiered at Cannes on Monday.
“The Apprentice” stars Marvel actor Sebastian Stan as a younger version of Trump, and “Succession” star Jeremy Strong as his fixer, Roy Cohn.
The film, which debuted at the French film festival, depicts the end of Trump’s marriage to Ivana, and features a scene of her giving him a book on how to be a better lover.
According to Variety, Stan’s version of Trump tells Ivana, played by Maria Bakalova, that he doesn’t find her attractive anymore, prior to sexually assaulting her.
Donald Trump‘s campaign is hitting back following the Cannes premiere of “The Apprentice,” which stars Sebastian Stan as the former President and chronicles his early years.
“We will be filing a lawsuit to address the blatantly false assertions from these pretend filmmakers.… pic.twitter.com/PwOfJHraUy
— Variety (@Variety) May 21, 2024
Ivana accused Trump of sexual assault during a 1989 divorce deposition, but retracted the claim in 2015, prior to her death.
In her 1990 divorce deposition, she said that Trump pushed her to the floor and yanked out several handfuls of her hair during the alleged incident.
Trump denied the accusation, and Ivana later clarified that she did not actually mean what she had alleged, but had felt violated at the time.
“On one occasion during 1989, Mr Trump and I had marital relations in which he behaved very differently towards me than he had during our marriage,” she remarked in 1993.
“As a woman, I felt violated … I referred to this as a rape, but I do not want my words to be interpreted in a literal or criminal sense,” Ivana explained in her statement.
She walked back the accusation further in 2015. “The story is totally without merit. Donald and I are the best of friends and together have raised three children that we love and are very proud of,” Ivana stated.
The Trump campaign threatened the controversial film with a lawsuit over the “the blatantly false assertions from these pretend filmmakers.”
The campaign’s chief spokesperson Steven Cheung, told Variety that the “garbage” film was based on “pure fiction” and “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,” he added.
“This ‘film’ is pure malicious defamation, 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,” Cheung concluded.
According to NBC Sports, Dan Snyder, the former owner of the Washington Commanders, who was an investor on the film, is not thrilled about how it turned out.
A legal dispute is reportedly underway between Snyder-funded Kinematics and the filmmakers.
Snyder, a supporter of the former president, allegedly invested in the film believing it would be flattering to Trump, but is “furious” with how it turned out.
Kinematics president Emanuel Nuñez commented that any issues with the film’s creative direction are solely between his company and the filmmakers, and do not involve Snyder.
In addition to Snyder’s Kinematics, the film was funded by a group of foreign and domestic investors outside of a Hollywood studio.
The film’s director called Trump a fascist at the movie’s Monday screening after an eight-minute round of applause.
“The Iranian president died. The Israeli prime minister is being indicted in the international court. There’s a war in Ukraine. There’s a war in Sudan. There’s all sorts of s— going on,” Ali Abbas said to the audience.
“I think in the time of turmoil you know, there’s this tendency to look inwards, to sort of bury your head deep in the sand, and look inside, and hope for the best and hope for the storm to get away,” he continued.
The Iranian born director noted that the “storm is not going away,” adding that it was actually “coming” and that the “worst times” have yet to arrive.
“When we did this movie, everyone said, ‘Why do you want to make a movie with Trump? You know, if you want to tell something about the world, do it in a nice way, in a metaphorical way,’” Abbasi went on.
Director Ali Abbasi makes the biggest political statement of #Cannes2024 so far during the 8-minute standing ovation for ‘The Apprentice’: ‘There is no nice metaphorical way to deal with the rising wave of fascism.’ pic.twitter.com/BGny0agRUW
— Ramin Setoodeh (@RaminSetoodeh) May 20, 2024
He stated that there was “no nice, metaphorical way” to handle the “rising wave of fascism.”
“The messy way, the banal way, is only the way of dealing with this wave on its own terms, at its own level,” Abbasi concluded.
“It’s not going to be pretty, but I think the problem with the world is that the good people have been quiet for too long.”