Stephen Colbert suggests Jeff Bezos could release Donald Trump’s Apprentice outtakes — but could it really happen?

Deadline

Amazon’s $8.45 billion acquisition of MGM and MGM Television means that technically Jeff Bezos, a frequent Trump target, will now be in charge of Trump’s Apprentice library. There's been speculation that the Apprentice library includes outtakes that could make the former president look bad. “Holy mother of DVD extras! The private footage of a TV billionaire is going to belong to an actual billionaire,” Colbert said on his show last night. But as Deadline’s Ted Johnson points out, “it’s unclear, and a bit confusing, as to whether Amazon’s acquisition would give it rights to the outtakes. In previous speculation over what the footage contains, advanced most famously by actor Tom Arnold, MGM and Mark Burnett have indicated there are other issues at work that have tied up the rights and prevent their release. Burnett’s production company is owned by MGM. In 2016, just weeks before the election, MGM and Burnett released a joint statement in which they said, ‘Despite reports to the contrary, Mark Burnett does not have the ability nor the right to release footage or other material from The Apprentice. Various contractual and legal requirements also restrict MGM’s ability to release such material.’”