We all know the Donald Trump of 2020 for the former president you hear on the campaign trail is largely unchanged from the one who descended that golden escalator back in 2015. But a new movie in theaters now suggests the evolution of that. Trump began in the late 1970s when he was coming up as a real estate developer.

I'm planning on making it the best and the finest building in the city. Maybe. Maybe the country and the world. Judy, In the world, it's going to be the finest building in the world. It's going to be a spectacular hotel, absolutely spectacular first class. And.

The Apprentice stars Sebastian Stan as a very young Donald Trump. He calls on infamous lawyer slash fixer Roy Cohn, played by Jeremy Strong, to help him and his father deal with a lawsuit from the U.S. Justice Department, which accused them of racially discriminating against black renters. And along the way, Cohn teaches Trump his three rules of winning, which might sound familiar. One. Attack, Attack. Attack. To admit nothing. Deny everything. And three. No matter what happens, you claim victory and never admit defeat. Now, this movie does include a disclaimer that some parts of the story are lightly fictionalized. Trump campaign communications director Steven Chung told CNN in a statement that the movie is, quote, pure fiction, which sensationalizes lies that have long been debunked. But while the timing of its arrival in movie theaters less than a month before Election Day is notable, it wasn't guaranteed because thanks to pulled funding and a series of legal threats from the real life Trump himself, there were questions whether American audiences would ever see it at all. So today we have something a little different, a conversation with the director of The Apprentice, Ali Abbasi. We're going to talk about his approach to making this movie and why he hopes both Republicans and Democrats will find something to be angry about after watching it from CNN. This is One Thing. And David Rind.

As I'm sitting in Trump Trump Hotel International, which I'm doing. It's you know, it's not even that luxurious.

You're in Trump Hotel right now.

That's right. I mean, I felt that it was fitting for us to, you know, connect somehow.

Ali Abbas is a director on the rise. His thrillers, Porter and Holy Spider, received a decent amount of international attention in 2018 and 2022. In 2023, he directed two episodes of the first season of HBO's The Last of Us. HBO, like CNN, is owned by Warner Brothers Discovery. But The Apprentice is bound to be Abbas's most divisive project to date. I spoke to him about it earlier this week. So this movie, The Apprentice, was written by Gabriel Sherman. He's a journalist turned screenwriter who is also a correspondent for Vanity Fair. And he wrote a fascinating story about the struggle to sell this movie, to get it made and how it was almost not even released here in America. So I encourage people to read it. But can you give us the CliffsNotes version of how that all went down?

'Well, basically. We tried to do a nonpartisan movie, which meant that people who would usually fund such a project would not fund it because they nobody were sort of following anyone's interest. Nor the Democrats. Nor the Republicans. Nor the liberals. Nor the conservatives. Even if you know, you might think that the sort of so-called liberal side had a interest in funding a project like this, which would be, you know, on paper critical of Mr. Trump. But they didn't think it was critical enough. So we had a difficult time getting funding. And then, you know, we sort of found our form investors now kinematics who were willing to pay that part of equity. And they in the beginning they were sort of, you know, risk taking and they wanted to join the ride, so to speak. But I think what happened was as we were doing the movie and, you know, we were into the shoot and the few years it took from, you know, the conversations starting until the end product being finished. In that time, Mr. Trump went from a former disgraced president who people are laughing at to someone who was very much on his way to becoming one of the most powerful people on the planet. And I think that scares people. Not only are former investors, but the distributors and everyone who who would think about stealing the wrath of Mr. Trump. And, you know, he has shown great ability and willingness to go after people for less than that. So so I think that's what happened, really.

Well, what does it say about Hollywood, this industry that that you work and that that kind of fear, you're saying might have crept into their decision making?

Well, it doesn't say anything that you don't know. I mean, it's entertainment business. And the huge difference between us and Europe, where I come from work is there you have government support and the support is exactly like one of the things that is justified for exactly these kind of situations where the market would be too unwilling or too afraid or too cautious to get into something. Now, you guys don't have that. So so in absence of that, when you're relying on markets for everything, the market has obviously its own logic. You know, you would say, why would we want to get into trouble with this guy who has supporters who would not buy ice cream and toilet paper and, you know, groceries from us? Why would we do that? Hollywood never has had a tradition to really get into politics. You know, I wouldn't say that this is something new. It's a long tradition.

'You were born in Iran. You live in Europe now. Like you said. That's right. So as a non-American, what was your impression of Trump when he first arrived on the political scene in 2015, 2016?

You know, I had a pretty clean slate when it came to Mr. Trump. I, I think literally for the first time I notice him was when he was coming down that escalator, you know, which which is much narrower and smaller in reality than you might think.

You went down the actual one?

Yes. We went there for several times, you know, because we wanted to look at, you know, Trump Tower and how it's built, because obviously, I wasn't I wasn't very positive about our chances of getting permission to shoot there, you know. But I felt like we need to know the place. And we went there with Sebastian as well. And we went up and down those escalators a few times. And yeah, so I saw him coming down there. That was the first time that was my introduction to to him. And then when I really like heard him talk was obviously that, you know, infamous or famous press conference where he announced it. But also one of the first times when he was on the scene with other presidential candidates of Republican Party. And I felt like he was by far the most charming, funniest and most dynamic of them. I mean, like Ted Cruz, he looks like a Bond villain, you know.

So his energy kind of really cut through the screen for you.

He did. And I think what what, you know. What was instantly recognizable was that, you know, and what was his strength? That he didn't feel like a politician. It didn't feel like this sort of, somebody gave him talking points and he's just reciting those. And he was freewheeling and he was hilarious. And he took you know, he said stuff that felt like stuff that he shouldn't say. And I think that was sort of my impression of him in the beginning. So actually, I wasn't that like he wasn't that negative, to be honest.

Were you aware of Roy Cohn as well in any way?

No, I wasn't. And I think that sort of put me in the perfect position to deal through this movie in a way, because I don't think anyone can, you know, sort of come and say that I've had, you know, any kind of agenda to the left or to right. And, you know, I sort of got to know these people as characters and human beings. And then I got to know their political background. Then I got to know, you know, obviously, Mr. Trump, you know, he was president at the time. So, you know, I wasn't completely oblivious what I was doing. But the young Donald Trump that we are depicting in The Apprentice is not the person who's running for office now. There is an overlap, but it's a different character.

Well, you know, many people have said that Trump is sort of beyond satire and making a film like this. You could easily see a tip into, you know, like parody or SNL territory. But the performances here are very grounded and everybody is kind of bringing something a little different. At least that's the way I kind of saw it. How, as a director, do you walk that line in achieving that kind of tone?

I just want to say I don't agree that with with with with the notion that he sort of is a satirical character. I think for me, US politics reminds me of like WWF. You know, you play this character might be like crazy character and might be like doing like, you know, tough talking and, you know, smashing people with chairs. But it's carefully calibrated and scripted. You know, you don't hit people with chairs just for fun, you know. There is a reason and I think if you look at how Mr. Trump has been developing, like, you know, how his rhetoric has been developing since the 70s, when he like first came into limelight, he has been consistently sort of dumbing it down in a way. And, you know, he becomes more and more like a telenovela. And I think those are ways that he has found to connect to his base, to to regular people who are not doesn't necessarily have great sophistication or like media knowledge or read like five papers. So I think the notion that he is a parody, I think is.

What I think when I say parody. I mean the the performances that we often see depicted in popular entertainment, like in.

Shows, that's.

Writers like those get very broad and big.

You're absolutely right.

You know, and these and these were a little more a little quieter, I guess.

No, you're right. You're right in that. And that was the mission statement. We wanted to treat them as human beings and we want to bring out their humanity. We want to treat them as like great characters with real pain, real pleasure, real grief. You know, and as you rightly mention, death has been strangely absent. I mean, there's been few depictions of Roy Cohn. There have been many depictions of Mr. Trump. There's been many depictions of Ivana. But they're always being treated as a sort of, you know, this sort of cartoonish in a way. And one of the things that I really like about Sebastian's interpretation of of young Donald is that he is actually, in a way, very minimalist. And I know that he is doing a maximalist character, which has a lot of different, you know, gestures and whatnot. But he does enough to convey and conjure the character and not more, because that's where you end up in the sour note life territory with with Jeremy you know it's even. Sort of. Even if he has a bigger latitude and is more colorful and all that. There's still this notion that he wants to sort of stand for that. He wants to know, you know, we did this interview a few weeks ago as like a roundtable, and I said something critical of of record. And and Jeremy got sort of upset, you know. He still has this sort of loyalty. Not that, you know, I'm not unless, you know, suggesting that is defending like what Roy did. But I think as a human being, he really sort of absorbed that humanity.

Well, this is what I wanted to ask, because we see some very human moments from Trump and how he reacts to his brother's death, for example, and Roy Cohn, who was, you know, living this closeted gay lifestyle, suffering with Aids at the end of his life, even though he always denied having the disease. What do you say to someone who says both of these men have done horrible things, accused of crimes in some cases, in the case of Roy Cohn, he persecuted Jews and gay people despite himself being gay and Jewish, and that these men don't deserve that kind of humanizing.

I think that's the wrong logic because it's not about if they deserved it or not. It's about if we deserve it or not in a way, you know, do we deserve to live in a world where we dehumanize people? And, you know, especially like important figures like them? I don't really buy into the notion of when you humanize someone, you agree with them and you love them and you just like do whatever, like, you know, that that that, you know, sort of become favorable to them. I think understanding them is a way of understanding yourself and the situation you're in as well. And also, you know, I don't think there is a contradiction between being an asshole and being lovable or being charming and being malicious. That's the complexity of human lives. You know, there are numerous, numerous examples of that. There are, you know, people who are, I don't know, great sportspeople who are like really, really nasty to their like, partners, you know. So, so I think that for me is the complexity of human condition. If you want to flatten that out, you're sort of flattening the whole depiction of human conditions, especially with these characters that are like so larger than life. You know, and and, and. That's politically. I also think that's wrong.

I mean, that sounds like a noble pursuit. But I guess I'm wondering, is it possible to do that in this kind of polarized climate in an election year where things are so tense on both sides? Because I've read in interviews that you yourself are staying neutral when it comes to the presidential election. Is an all art inherently political, let alone a piece of art like this that kind of profiles someone who has become like the most disruptive force in American politics that we've ever seen.

Look, there are a few thing different things here. A I'm not going into this all. There are good people on both sides. Shit. On one side you have a Democratic candidate. I'm not Democrat. I don't love Democrats, nor do I love Republicans. I'm Republican. But on the other side, you don't necessarily have a Republican. You have someone who has you know, some of Mr. Trump's policies are horrible. The way he's talking about people is horrible, the way he's talking about, you know, immigrants eating cats and dogs. That's like loony. You know, it's I'm not, you know, me being neutral in this politics. You know, I'm not from here. You know, there's no reason for me to take sides. But, you know, if there are certain actions, you know, denying women control over their own bodies, that's just wrong. So I think that is one thing. The other thing is, do you let the politics of any given time to dictate to you what your artistic pursuit is? Or do you sort of try to dictate the artistic pursuit to the politics of of your time? And I think that's what I'm hoping for doing, because we can sit here and praise Trump or criticize him, you know, left and right. There have been so many pieces for him in so many pieces against him. There have been some reports and books. So that's not what we're missing in the debates. What we're missing in the debate is to see this understand them as as characters, as as human beings. You know, and this is if you want to sort of link these two things together, this is a an election about character. That's what, you know, people keep saying. It's an election about character. It's not necessarily only about politics, about two very different characters, which I agree. And if you're interested in character, if you want to see how Trump became the person he is, we have those answers for you now. How do you want to use it? That's a different thing.

'But do you think there are people out there who are genuinely looking for something like that? Because I imagine, you know, somebody who watches the preview for this movie. You know, people on the right might say, this is just the hit piece. They're anti-Trump and people on the left who say these men did not deserve to be humanized. I have no interest in looking at that. Like, who are these people in your mind that are looking for character and just trying to go deeper and understanding how Trump got to where he is?

Look, if we are pissing off both sides, we're doing something right. That's how I feel. If we if we if everyone is pissed of us because we don't sort of adhere to their ideology or their political agenda, I think that is just perfect. That's the sweet spot for us. And and, you know, I'm not as naive as to say, we're going to change the election, nor do we want to do that. No, it is our job to do that. But I think that these are huge characters and this is important on so many levels. And also, you know, it's not only a Trump movie. It's a movie about a whole system. It's a movie about how you kicked Did you have this legal system that easily manipulable? You can bury people with money. You can, you know, so so I think that, yes, if you look at it as a Trump indictment or Trump praise, yes, we we might not do either.

We'll be right back. Now, The Apprentice also portrays a volatile relationship between Trump and his first wife, Ivana, played by Maria Bakalova.

Come on, don't do this.

Go find someone else Donald, I'm not a trophy wife.

You're going to ruin your life if you don't marry me. One second. Listen.

Why is that?

Because I'm rich. I'm handsome. I have a great family. I'm going to be the number one builder in New York. Listen to me. You're going to have the life you can't even dream of Ivana with me. I love you.

But in one scene, the movie suggests their relationship turned violent. We see Trump and Ivana get into an argument. It gradually escalates and it leads to Trump sexually assaulting Ivana. It's honestly tough to watch, but I want to be totally clear about what the two Trumps have said about this incident in real life during their divorce proceedings. Ivana accused Trump of raping her during this 1989 incident, the one depicted in the film. Now, the world first learned about this in a 1993 book written by former Newsweek reporter Harry Hurt, the third. But right before the book was about to be released. Ivana Trump released a statement that said, quote, I referred to this as a rape, but I do not want my words to be interpreted in a literal or criminal sense. Later, when Donald Trump was first running for president in 2015, this story resurfaced and Ivana issued another statement which said, quote, I have recently read some comments attributed to me from nearly 30 years ago at a time of very high tension during my divorce from Donald. The story is totally without merit. Donald and I are the best of friends and together have raised three children that we love and are very proud of. I have nothing but fondness for Donald and wish him the best of luck on his campaign. End quote. We should note Trump has always denied raping Ivana, and he has also strongly denied all accusations of sexual assault made by multiple women throughout the years. But a jury did find Trump liable for sexually abusing the writer Jean Carroll during a civil trial last year. But in light of all that back and forth, I wanted to ask ABC why they included that scene in the movie.

Dealing with the character. You know, it's not the first time Mr. Trump is accused of sexual assault. So I don't think is out of thin air or like, you know, it's defamatory. And I think it would be I think it would be strange to exclude that for the for the only reason being that, he might hurt Mr. Trump's feelings or he might endanger us, because that's where we start going into a political situation, which is, we're pissing off this part or that part, and we shouldn't do that. And I think that is dangerous.

As a filmmaker, why did you want to do this movie? Because a lot of your password kind of tips into some more genre stuff, horror even. But this is very much real life guys and gals in rooms talking about stuff.

Yeah. Or in basements. No, you're right. This is this is more drama that I wanted or, you know, maybe I, you know, because I sort of drama is never my my favorite genre in movies. You know, I want I'm interested in fantasy. I'm interested in surrealism, ocean dreams. I'm interested in sort of subjective storytelling. That's the kind of things like I sort of naturally lean towards and I had to constrain myself actually, this time not to go too crazy because I do want people to watch this. I do want the sort of middle America to watch this without feeling, this is too inaccessible, fancy campus or whatnot movie. I think there is a little bit of a Frankenstein story here. I just saw Ashley Banks and the other day in Los Angeles at the Academy Museum. And it was so interesting. There is a there's a saying that. Yeah. Thank you. Stan wanted to create, you know, the monster in his own image. That's not exactly it, but sort of without the. In the absence of God, so to speak. And I feel like that's exactly why Roy did what Roy did with with young Donald that he sort of created recreated him in his own image. So if you read it that way and if you read it morally, it's a horror story. It is. Does that make these people monsters? I don't think they are. I think they are. They are flawed human beings. But I think the whole point is we should not demonize and we don't want to demonize them. But sort of dramaturgical speaking. We follow that. We follow that person. This is a unique opportunity you're given to do something meaningful. And I think any time you do something meaningful, some people would love it and some people would hate it. That's my experience. But, you know, in a way, it this is also I feel like it is the most commercial movie I've ever made. You know, in terms of like its its language, in terms of excessive, in terms of being being fun and entertaining. Like I, I actually think the movie is quite entertaining. I love the soundtrack. I always, even when I watch it and sing along, you know. So I don't know. I mean, I do I guess I do my job and I hope for the best.

While The Apprentice is out now, Ali Abbas, thank you so much. I really appreciate it.

Thank you.

One thing is a production of CNN Audio. This episode was produced by Paola Ortiz and me, David Rind. Our senior producers are Felicia Patinkin and Faiz Jamil. Matt Dempsey is our production manager, Dan Dzula, is our technical director. And Steve Lickteig is the executive producer of CNN Audio. We get support from Hayley Thomas, Alex Manasseri, Robert Mathers. John Dianora, Leni Steinhart, Jamus Andrest, Nichole Pesaru and Lisa Namerow. Special thanks to Alayna Treene, Wendy Brundage and Katie Hinman. We'll be back on Sunday with another episode, I'll talk to you then.