Donald Trump Tries To Halt ‘The Apprentice’ Hitting The Big Screen With Cease & Desist Demand; “Fair & Balanced” Producers Say Of Film

Donald Trump‘s campaign said earlier this week they would take legal action against the filmmakers behind Cannes hit The Apprentice, and now the former Celebrity Apprentice host’s team has made their first jab.

As the Ali Abbasi directed film seeks a distribution deal to get on U.S. screens, lawyers for the former president have sent an adjective filled cease and desist letter to the producers to stop The Apprentice being seen by anyone Stateside, Deadline has confirmed.

“The film is a fair and balanced portrait of the former president,” the producers said today in response to the letter, and with a nod to Fox News’ old motto. “We want everyone to see it and then decide.”

The Trump campaign did not respond to request for comment on the correspondence. If and when they do respond, this post will be updated. News of the cease and desist letter was first reported by Variety.

Long time Trump followers can tell you that while the much indicted past and current candidate often threatens lawsuits against critics and rivals, he rarely follows up. That might be different this time with the Sebastian Stan, Maria Bakalova, and Succession vet Jeremy Strong starring flick of the Art of the Deal author’s rise in the 1970s and 1980s under the tutorage of the ruthless Roy Cohn. Having said that, a cease and desist letter is not much more than a warning shot across the bow of any potential defendant, and means little without an actual court filing.

A fact that Abbasi himself noted at a May 21 press conference the day after The Apprentice’s debut.“Everybody talks about him suing a lot of people, they don’t talk about his success rate [with those lawsuits],” the filmmaker told assembled media.

Featuring a number of sordid situations from Trump’s time in the New York real estate arena, including a much reported sexual assault of his then wife Ivana (played by Borat alkum Bakalova), the Gabriel Sherman penned The Apprentice received an the 11-minute standing ovation after its premiere. Outside the cinema, the film has been generally praised by critics.

Coming off a rambling rally in the Bronx yesterday, (where once again the attendance was exaggerated) Trump himself is going back to court in Manhattan to hear closing arguments in his hush money criminal trial. The matter and Trump’s fate heads to the jury after the lawyers get their say.