When he launched his 2016 presidential run, millions of Americans knew him best not from his bankrupt casinos or the gossip pages of the New York Post but as the swaggering host of NBC’s The Apprentice, in which aspiring entrepreneurs competed for a full-time job in his real estate empire. Trump routinely overstated the primetime dominance of The Apprentice, which was a breakout hit in its debut 2003–2004 season but saw its ratings steadily decline over subsequent years.