Amazon's new effort to 'curry favor' with Trump shot down by president's ex-aide

Oner of President Donald Trump's former aides looked askance at a new report that Amazon is considering a reboot of the popular reality TV show that propelled him to ubiquitous fame.

Alyssa Farah Griffin, co-host of "The View" and former White House director of strategic communications, told "CNN News Central" that Amazon's potential reboot – possibly starring Donald Trump Jr. – is clearly aimed at flattering the 79-year-old president.

"I'm just shocked they haven't thought of this sooner, to be honest," Griffin said. "So honestly, people think of Donald Trump and they think of his real estate empire. But the thing he was actually most successful at before becoming a two-term president was television, 'The Apprentice.' The spinoffs were hugely successful. You've got about 80 million people who voted for Donald Trump, even if a fraction of those are loyal to any project he's involved in, they're going to tune in to this."

"Will I watch it? Probably not," she added, "but there are a lot of folks who are going to tune in because it's the Trump legacy, and it's a show that was widely popular from a business standpoint, it makes total sense."

Amazon previously paid $40 million to distribute “Melania,” a documentary that followed the first lady during the first weeks of her husband's second term, and it released episodes of the original “The Apprentice” series on Prime Video in March 2025, and Griffin agreed the company was trying to curry favor with Trump.

"That's very clearly what is happening here, but there is a market for it," she said. "That's just there's no question that at this point, Donald Trump won the popular vote. I think a lot of executives are looking around and saying, 'Okay, so what do we do with, how do we bring in some of those voters as potential viewers?' That said, I think a less polarizing person would maybe be Ivanka Trump as the potential host of this. Put somebody in who might have a little bit of appeal to people who didn't vote for him, but it's not the worst idea I've ever heard."

"Television is a great way to curry favor with this president," Griffin added. "Being supportive of him on television, putting his allies on television, that's that's the quickest way to get through to him."

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