As Trump Reportedly Plots Reality TV Return, Nearly Half of Voters Think It’s a Bad Idea

As his time in the White House winds down, President Donald Trump is contemplating his next move, which, according to some media reports, might include a return to reality television. But polling finds that while he has some Republican support, larger shares of voters are against the idea. 

A Dec. 18-20 Morning Consult/Politico poll found that 48 percent of the 1,995 registered voters surveyed said reprising Trump's “The Apprentice” reality franchise was a bad idea. Most Democrats (61 percent) were against the idea, while Republicans were more divided: 38 percent said it was a good idea, while 31 percent said it was a bad idea.  

The Daily Beast reported last week that Trump is considering rebooting either “The Apprentice” or “The Celebrity Apprentice,” according to two people with direct knowledge of the situation and another person close to the president, even though a spokesperson for the show’s producer, Mark Burnett, said there have been no discussions about resurrecting the programs, which originally aired on NBC.

Nearly half (48 percent) of registered voters said it would be inappropriate for a major television network to work with Trump to bring the program back to television, a view shared by 65 percent of Democrats. Republicans were more open to the idea, with 45 percent saying it would be appropriate for a network to air a rebooted version of “The Apprentice.”

The survey has an overall margin of error of 2 percentage points, while the Democratic and Republican subsamples have 3-point and 4-point margins of error, respectively.