‘He’s changed’: Trump hits out at former ally Howard Stern for ‘going woke’
Donald Trump has gone after Howard Stern for turning on the former president in recent years, something Trump has blamed on the radio show host becoming “woke.”
Trump appeared on the Fox News late-night show Gutfeld! on Wednesday evening where he was shown a clip of the radio host and several other celebrities lambasting the former president.
“I don't hate the guy,” Stern said of Trump. “I hate the people who vote for him. I think they're stupid. I do. I'll be honest with you, I have no respect for you.”
“I was on Howard Stern’s show as much as anybody,” the former president said on the Fox program. “He was great at that time, and then he went woke. And since he’s gone woke his ratings have gone down the tubes. And he sort of went anti-Trump for a couple of reasons.”
“I was on his show a lot,” Trump told host Greg Gutfeld. “Did you ever see the ... Best of Howard Stern? I don't want to promote it necessarily, but I was there for just about all of them ... We had good shows. It was good, but he's changed. And, you know, he doesn't do the ratings anymore.”
During the early onset of the Coronavirus pandemic in the spring of 2020, Stern blasted Trump for suggesting that Americans inject bleach to deal with the disease.
“I would love it if Donald would get on TV and take an injection of Clorox and let’s see if his theory works,” Stern said at the time. “Hold a big rally, say f*** this coronavirus, with all of his followers, and let them hug each other and kiss each other and have a big rally.”
“A big cocktail of disinfectant,” co-host Robin Quivers said.
“Yeah, and all take disinfectant and all drop dead,” Stern replied.
Trump was asked on Gutfeld! on Wednesday night if he would ever return to television, and he proceeded to brag about The Apprentice.
“I had The Apprentice for 12 years, 14 seasons ... they wanted to renew me for five years ... I said I wanted to run for president,” Trump said.
Trump claimed that NBC staff came to see him and attempted to convince him not to run.
“They said, ‘it's not possible to win. Nobody's ever done that’,” Trump said.
“Nobody ever gives up prime time show,” he added.
The former president went on to say “It was so successful. The big question is, did it make a difference? Would I have been president?”
“You know, a lot of people say they created this guy from The Apprentice, and I don't know if that's true, because they chose me because of the ... success,” he added.
Trump was reportedly so bad at picking who to fire during his stint hosting The Apprentice that the producers of the show would retroactively edit the show to make him look better.
“Our job then was to reverse-engineer the show and to make him not look like a complete moron,” a member of the production team told the authors of the new book Lucky Loser, New York Times journalists Russ Buettner and Susanne Craig.
The producers of the program would have to go back and edit the show to make the person who Trump chose to fire look bad, even if they had performed quite well during the tasks at hand.