In an interview with Donald Trump on Thursday’s NBC Today, co-host Savannah Guthrie wondered why the Republican presidential candidate accepted an invitation to host Saturday Night Live: “As you are perfectly aware, there are Latino groups that are outside protesting NBC and SNL because you are hosting this weekend. Are you surprised that SNL asked you to host after there was this acrimonious split with NBC back in the summer? And why did you accept?”
Trump replied: “Well, it wasn't so acrimonious. The Apprentice, as you know, they renewed, and they renewed it with me for 28 sessions and they wanted to do it, but I decided I wanted to run for president...I told Steve Burke, who’s a fantastic guy at Comcast, and I said, ‘You know, I'm going to run’....there's no problem whatsoever with NBC.”
The businessman did note being upset by NBC cancelling the Miss Universe pageant sponsored by him: “The Miss Universe, there was a problem, to be honest, and I ended up buying their interest and then I sold it to IMG, the whole thing, and it worked out amazingly well for me.”
Earlier in the exchange, Trump praised SNL: “Saturday Night Live is a special thing. It's like being on 60 Minutes. I was on 60 Minutes a month ago. There are certain iconic brands, iconic things.”
As Trump spoke to Guthrie, footage rolled on screen of protesters against him, one of whom held a sign that read: “Trump; Make America Hate Again.”
Prior to Guthrie’s interview with Trump, fellow co-host Matt Lauer declared that the GOP contender’s appearance on the comedy show was “already courting controversy.” In the report that followed, correspondent Peter Alexander proclaimed:
Now sparking a backlash, Trump's hosting gig on Saturday Night Live this weekend. Latino groups protesting outside NBC's New York City headquarters, delivering a petition with more than a half million signatures demanding NBC and SNL revoke Trump’s invitation, saying racism is not funny.
Trump’s upcoming SNL appearance sparked a discussion at the top of the show’s 9 a.m. ET hour as well, with co-host Willie Geist touting the same petition and adding: “Eva Longoria, I thought this was interesting, talking to The Wrap, she said this, ‘We as a Hispanic community have a choice to not watch it. That’s our choice...You cannot limit that choice to producers or a networks. That's their choice to do that.’”
Fellow co-host Natalie Morales argued: “Yeah, I mean there’s freedom of speech and freedom and there’s freedom of choice to, you know, vote with your remote.”
Co-host Tamron Hall questioned why NBC would cancel the Miss Universe pageant but not prevent Trump from hosting SNL:
But that wasn't applied to the pageant that was taken down. I think that’s what people – the SNL thing moves forward but the pageant was taken down. And people had a choice could click off the pageant as well, but there was a big move made with that. So I don't know the difference.
Here is a full transcript of Guthrie’s November 5 interview with Trump:
7:15 AM ET
SAVANNAH GUTHRIE: Donald Trump is with us now by phone. Mr. Trump, good morning to you.
DONALD TRUMP: Good morning, Savannah.
[ON-SCREEN HEADLINE: Donald Trump Speaks Out; Candidate on New Ads, Carson’s Surge & Hosting SNL]
GUTHRIE: We’ll talk about SNL in a moment, but let's talk about your new ads. They're just out this morning. I'm assuming that you would not waste your money on ads if you didn't feel you needed to. Does this show that you're feeling the heat, that the race is tightening?
TRUMP: I don't think so. I mean, Fox came out with their poll last night, a big one, and I was substantially in the lead and I'm leading in almost every poll. But I will tell you, I've had heat because I haven't spent money. It would be nice if the country could do that, Savannah. I've spent no money and I'm number one. Other people have spent tens of millions of dollars and they're floundering and doing poorly.
So it would be nice – honestly, wouldn't it be nice if we could do that with education, where frankly, we spend more per pupil than any country in the world and we're in 28th place.
So, no, I just wanted to do the ads. I'm putting them in Iowa and South Carolina and New Hampshire. And you know, hopefully they're going to be good ads. And it's time for me to start advertising a little bit.
GUTHRIE: Ben Carson has a lot of momentum in these polls. He tops some of them, you top others. He says your attacks on him are basically grade school bullying and suggests it’s beneath him.
TRUMP: Well, he's referring to the Saturday Night Live, and he said he would never do it, but of course he would do it. They didn't ask him to do it. And you know, Saturday Night Live is a special thing. It's like being on 60 Minutes. I was on 60 Minutes a month ago. There are certain iconic brands, iconic things. And he would certainly do it if he was asked. I mean, every president probably that you can think of, and many of the candidates have done it. But I don't think they'll ask him. But I know if they did ask him, he would do it.
GUTHRIE: Let me ask you about that. As you are perfectly aware, there are Latino groups that are outside protesting NBC and SNL because you are hosting this weekend. Are you surprised that SNL asked you to host after there was this acrimonious split with NBC back in the summer? And why did you accept?
TRUMP: Well, it wasn't so acrimonious. The Apprentice, as you know, they renewed, and they renewed it with me for 28 sessions and they wanted to do it, but I decided I wanted to run for president. I want to make the country great again. I told Steve Burke, who’s a fantastic guy at Comcast, and I said, “You know, I'm going to run.” But they renewed The Apprentice, and they renewed it with me, but I decided I just couldn't do it, because of the equal time I couldn’t do it. The Miss Universe, there was a problem, to be honest, and I ended up buying their interest and then I sold it to IMG, the whole thing, and it worked out amazingly well for me. So, you know, and there's no problem whatsoever with NBC.
Now, the reason they put me there is one very simple reason, it’s called ratings. I get good ratings. If I didn't get ratings, they wouldn't put me there.
GUTHRIE: You were critical just as recently as this morning of Marco Rubio and his handling of his own finances, suggesting that the way he's handled his own personal finances perhaps is a good way to determine how he might handle the country's finances. My question to you is, does that invite scrutiny of your own business record? You’ve talked about using the bankruptcy laws strategically in the past. But here's the bottom line, if a company is doing well, is healthy, is robust financially, why do you even need to use the bankruptcy laws?
TRUMP: Well, I'm no different than many of the people that you have on your show. The biggest business leaders in the world. We all do it. We use the laws of the land. I've had 500 companies of different kinds, and over the years, I've used it three or four times, as has – I could name people, but why should I name them? But you have the list. Virtually everybody that you write about has used those laws over the years corporately. I never went bankrupt, but corporately. And frankly, I've made a lot of money using those laws. And I've also bought a lot of things out of bankruptcies, where I go in and I pick out things in bankruptcies and I end up buying, you know, tremendous pieces of land, tremendous assets out of bankruptcies.
So I've used the bankruptcy laws, which are the laws of the land, for – you know, corporately. I could name the biggest names in business, and they've almost all used them. And you know, I mean, so I have had no backlash on that. As far as the rest, I built an unbelievable company with some of the great assets of the world and everybody knows that. I made my filings and everybody was shocked at how big it is. They didn't think it was as big as it is. They were shocked at how incredible the company itself is. So I'm very honored by it. I've been a public book. You know, you've been covering me, Savannah, you and Matt have been covering me for a long time. I've been a public book.
GUTHRIE: We have indeed, and Mr. Trump, we'll see you in a different role this Saturday on Saturday Night Live. Thanks for your time this morning. Appreciate it.
TRUMP: Thank you very much, Savannah.
