Celebrities — and the people who follow them — seem to have very much overestimated the political influence of the rich and famous in the election. That’s with the exception of Donald Trump, of course, who somehow managed to convince voters that he was not a member of the same “celebrity elite” he denigrated, despite having once hosted, you know… The Celebrity Apprentice. But. If you’re a celebrity who happens to now be claiming to hold incriminating tapes of the host-turned-President-elect from his time hosting The Apprentice, perhaps you have — or have an inflated idea that you have — slightly higher chances of having some impact than, say, Chloë Grace Moretz endorsing Hillary Clinton at the DNC.
First off, it should be noted that other “incriminating tapes” certainly didn’t do much to change the nihilistic trajectory America has taken thus far (they got Billy Bush fired, but not Trump), so it’s hard to imagine that no matter how bad — and they sound very bad — these alleged tapes supposedly are, the world will ultimately find a way to continue said downward spiral towards January 20.
But, anyway, here’s this. Comedian Tom Arnold tweeted 14 statements on Christmas Day about a tape of outtakes from The Celebrity Apprentice — something he’d made note of last week, claiming that they revealed Trump saying the “N-word,” the “C-word,” and calling his son a “retard.” He’d said the alleged footage was sent to him by Apprentice staffers as a joke. He stated, when he first claimed to be in possession of such material on Dori Monson’s KIRO Radio show: “[When] the people sent it to me, it was funny. Hundreds of people have seen these. It was sort of a Christmas video they put together. He wasn’t going to be president of the United States.”
Arnold originally emphasized that he wouldn’t leak the tapes himself — despite also claiming that he was asked to by Hillary Clinton’s camp, as well as Arnold Schwarzenegger’s agent — and said that they could just further galvanize supporters who’re fans of his “political incorrectness,” i.e. flagrant racism. The content is “disgusting but not illegal,” he said in one of his Tweets (below) on Christmas.
The new series of Tweets, however, also suggest that if any of this is actually real, Tom Arnold of all people has — or thinks he has, or wants other people to think he has — some information about other illegal activity. He remains vague, but says that “Watergate level journalists are on top of it.” So…in this strangest and most disturbing of years, in which pop culture and politics insidiously collided and helped pave the way for a Trump presidency, is Tom Arnold actually…our next Deep Throat, or just the comedian you haven’t thought about in a while who happens to be posting some relevancy-grabbing stuff on Twitter?
The tweets were prompted when actor Michael Rapaport asked, via Twitter, “Tom, you talking sideways. Where Dem Tapes At?”
And then:
and finally: