The comedian said it was “insane” to think of that.

Margaret Cho says she was asked to join The Apprentice several times, was told Trump was a huge fan of hers

The comedian said it was "insane" to think of that.

By Raechal Shewfelt

Raechal Shewfelt

Raechal Shewfelt is a writer at **. She has been working at EW since 2024. Her work has previously appeared on Yahoo and in American *Journalism Review* and *The Shreveport Times*.

EW's editorial guidelines

March 6, 2026 12:14 a.m. ET

Leave a Comment

Margaret Cho and Donald Trump. Credit:

Amy Sussman/Getty; Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty

Margaret Cho remembers being told back in the day that President Donald Trump was a big fan of hers.

Asked whether she ever came close to joining the cast of *The Apprentice*, the comedian and activist answered in the affirmative.

"I was asked several times to be on it, season after season, and they kept saying, 'Well, Donald Trump really loves you. Please come on,'" Cho recalled Thursday on *The Julia Cunningham Show*. "I just had a bad feeling about it, because I did go on one of the challenges cause my friend Cyndi Lauper was competing one year, and so she did something at a diner, so I went and I helped out. I was at the diner, and so I was part of an episode, but I never actually was a contestant, but I was asked several times because Donald Trump was a fan."

***Get your daily dose of entertainment news, celebrity updates, and what to watch with our ******EW Dispatch newsletter******.***

Trump starred in the reality TV series, created by Mark Burnett, that followed contestants as they competed to work as an apprentice to him in his business organization, beginning in 2004. There were some seasons of the series that featured celebrities — *The Celebrity Apprentice* — such as 2010's season 9, on which the "Time After Time" singer competed.

"At the beginning of the [Trump] campaign in 2016, Michael Cohen somehow got my email and was really begging me to become part of the campaign, and I'm like, 'That's insane. I'm a lifelong Democrat."

Cho said she was truly baffled.

"Why would I back somebody that — I didn't know anything about him also, because I'm not a New Yorker. I never had any clue about really who he was. I think that he was just such a regional kind of phenomenon at that point. Nobody outside of New York really knew, but I was just like, 'Why would you ask me that?'"

Margaret Cho recalls how weight-loss drug led to a gross onstage accident that ruined her outfit and car

Margaret Cho says Ellen DeGeneres was 'not nice' to her for most of her career: 'It's so creepy and weird'

When Cunningham suggested that it was "bizarre" to think that Trump would be fond of her brand of comedy, Cho agreed.

"It's so weird," the *Dying for Sex* actress said.

** has reached out to the White House for comment.

Trump has regularly railed against comedians who regularly skewer politicians, including those who are on late-night TV or part of *Saturday Night Live*.

Cho has been outspoken about her dislike of Trump for years, even referring to him as "abhorrent."

While she didn't join the cast of *The Apprentice*, Cho continues to appear regularly in movies and on TV shows, as she has this year with episodes of *Will Trent *and movies including Olivia Wilde's *I Want Your Sex*.

- Celebrities & Creators

- Entertainment Industry Roles

Original Article on Source

Source: “EW Comedians”