Los Angeles, May 24 (EFE).- The lawyers of former President Donald Trump (2017-2021) sent a legal request to the makers of the film ‘The Apprentice’, by Iranian director Ali Abbasi, in an effort for blocking the release in the United States of the film that they accuse of electoral interference and defamation, US media reported this Friday.
The film, premiered this week at the Cannes Film Festival, portrays the magnate’s beginnings in the New York real estate sector in the 70s and 80s.
In a cease and desist letter (a legal form requesting that alleged misconduct be stopped), the former president’s lawyers said that although the film is presented as an objective biography of Trump, “nothing could be further from the truth”.
In the legal document, cited by the Washington Post, lawyer David A. Warrington warned that the tape “is a concoction of lies that repeatedly defames former President Trump and constitutes direct foreign interference in the United States elections.”
The three-page letter was sent last Wednesday to the producers and Abbasi, who at the presentation of the film said that Trump “should see it before starting to denounce us.”
“I wanted to distance myself a little from today’s Trump because if you look at his evolution he is a different person,” said the director at a press conference, who is convinced that the film does not necessarily have to displease the former president. “I think you’ll be surprised.”
But Warrington even attacked Sebastian Stan, who plays Trump, and Jeremy Strong, who plays lawyer Roy Cohn, an essential figure in Trump’s rise and friend of the most powerful.
He also accuses screenwriter Gabriel Sherman, a political journalist for Vanity Fair, of having “Trump derangement syndrome” for his own attacks on the president.
Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung had already warned of legal action against the film, calling it “pure malicious defamation.”
“This rubbish is pure fiction that sensationalizes lies that have long been debunked,” the spokesperson added.
For his part, Abbasi, known for films like ‘Holy Spider’ (2022) or ‘Border’ (2018), assures that ‘The Apprentice’ is not about Donald Trump and joked about the release date, which could be next September 15, coinciding with the second electoral debate between Joe Biden and Trump. EFE
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