ZAP2IT.COM

ZAP2IT.COM
Once "The Apprentice" got down to its final two candidates, Donald Trump wanted to see his potential future employees face some real stress.
He got his wish, thanks to executive producer Mark Burnett.
"Donald wants to see them in a CEO-type role, not as a member of a team, but as a real boss," Burnett says. "The final tasks are huge, and the pressure on these people -- even the final two start to crack."
After the elimination of sort-of lovebirds Amy Henry and Nick Warnock in the penultimate episode, Harvard MBA Kwame Jackson and cigar entrepreneur Bill Rancic were left to take on jobs that directly affect aspects of Trump's business. Rancic was put in charge of a golf tournament bearing Trump's name, while Jackson had to oversee a Jessica Simpson concert at Trump's Taj Mahal casino in Atlantic City.
How they do will help determine the winner in tonight's live, two-hour finale. Instead of uttering the show's catch phrase "You're fired," Trump will tell either Jackson or Rancic "You're hired."
Undecided
As of last week, when Trump and Burnett talked to reporters about the show, Trump hadn't decided whether he would choose Jackson or Rancic to run one of his divisions, at an annual salary of $250,000. He likes both men.
"Kwame and Bill seem similar, but they're very different," Trump says. "Bill's actually a much more aggressive person than he looks on television. Kwame, everyone loves this guy. He's a Harvard MBA, he left Goldman Sachs for this opportunity -- not a lot of people would be leaving Goldman Sachs, literally, just for this opportunity."
Trump also hasn't decided which part of his empire he'll have the winner run. "I think certain people would be better at one thing than another," he says. "So to a certain extent it depends on who the winner is going to be."
The billionaire will also have to break the news to an employee that he or she is being pushed aside to let a reality-show contestant run the company for a year.
"Ay yi yi -- why did you have to ask me that question?" Trump says. "I've already prepared a number of my divisions. Depending on the job we're doing -- in one case in particular it's a very big situation -- we're gonna be watching this new president very closely. This is not gonna be a man who's gonna be running off half-cocked. But these people have worked for me a long time, they're total professionals, and they understand."
More to come
NBC has already ordered two more cycles of "The Apprentice," and Trump will be part of them -- at a substantially higher salary than his initial $50,000 per episode. Beyond that, however, he's noncommittal.
"At some point, I have to go on with my life," Trump says. "I'm not going to be on the show forever. Hopefully someone will replace me who's going to carry the show on to -- I can't say great heights, but to the same heights or even slightly less, and that would be satisfactory."