‘CELEBRITY Apprentice” runner up Trace Adkins says that Donald Trump set a bad example by picking “evil” “America’s Got Talent” judge Piers Morgan as the season’s winner.
“With all due respect to Mr. Trump,” Adkins told CNN Headline News right-winger Glenn Beck this week, “I think the decision he made sent the wrong message to young people in America.”
Before the live finale, Trump had called the showdown between Adkins and Morgan as a battle between “good and evil” on the previous week’s episode. Adkins, a likeable cowboy country singer, spent most of the season flying below the radar and treating his co-contestants with respect.
Morgan, a former Fleet Street tabloid editor from London, was abusive and abrasive, but was the most successful at the cut-throat business competition.
“I think the message he [Trump] sent was just to make the most money,” Adkins said. “It doesn’t really matter how you go about it or how you conduct yourself or who you stomp on in the process, just as long as you come out on top, you know, as far as your windfall profits. And I just, I still feel that that was the wrong decision.”
“Celebrity Apprentice” turned out to be one of the surprise hits of the season. Following years of slumping ratings, the Trump-owned reality show had faced an uncertain future.
It is scheduled to return next winter.