James Hirsen’s heart is breaking.
In a May 16 Newsmax post, Hirsen mulls over Donald Trump’s presidential ambitions, as he is prone to do along with the rest of Newsmax. After quoting an NBC executive saying that the “Celebrity Apprentice” franchise could carry on without Trump, Hirsen added, “Based on the current crop of potential GOP candidates, let’s hope so.”
A few hours after Hirsen wrote that, however, Trump announced that he would not seek the presidential nomination, and in a way that contradicts the way Newsmax’s Ronald Kessler claimed he would.
Remember, it took three tries for Kessler to nail down his “exclusive” that Trump would announce on the May 22 season finale of “Celebrity Apprentice” a date that would announce his decision on running, and that “sources close to the real estate titan tell me that at that press conference Trump will be announcing his candidacy for the presidency.” The first part of that went bust the other day, when an NBC executive pointed out the “Celebrity Apprentice” finale was taped months ago.
The actual Trump announcement got only a “Newsmax Wires” article — surprising given the great lengths Newsmax has gone to promote Trump’s presidential ambitions, led by the fawning coverage of Kessler.
Hirsen, meanwhile, speculating that continuing “Celebrity Apprentice” was more important to Trump than the presidency and weirdly blaming NBC for it: “It looks like NBC played hardball with the Donald. The mogul must have been acutely aware of the Ashton Kutcher hire by CBS to neatly slip into the Charlie Sheen role in the “Two and a Half Men” sitcom. penned a post after Trump’s big announcement. Could it be that becoming the new Sheen would have been too much for the Donald to bear?”
Having their Trump dreams dashed, it seems, was too much for Hirsen and Newsmax to bear.