Relive the Moment Gilbert Gottfried Called Donald Trump ‘Mein Fuhrer’ on ‘The Apprentice’

In most ways, Gilbert Gottfried was always behind the times. On his podcast, he obsessed over old movies, and up until his death in 2022, his stand-up act still contained jokes about long-dead character actors like Ben Gazzara and impressions of an elderly Groucho Marx. There’s at least one example, though, of Gottfried being ahead of the curve, and that was when he appeared on the seventh season of The Celebrity Apprentice in January 2015. 

Other funny people had competed on The Celebrity Apprentice before him, but no one so clearly gave exactly zero fucks about it. In a baking competition where he had to wear rubber gloves, he offered Geraldo Rivera a prostate exam, and later, he told dirty jokes to the executives of a frozen yogurt company, all to the chagrin of the insufferably self-serious Ian Ziering (who clearly couldn’t stand Gottfried).

Until his firing in the third episode, every moment with Gottfried — like in most anything he appeared in — was hilarious, but nothing was funnier than during his second board meeting with Donald Trump. After one task in which Gottfried’s comedy proved to be an asset instead of a disadvantage, Trump said, “Gilbert, I’m proud of you.” 

To which Gottfried replied, “Thank you, Mein Fuhrer.”

To his credit, Trump laughed it off, explaining, “Only Gilbert can say that.” Of course, in January 2017, Trump would become president and all of his fascist tendencies would come to light in truly dangerous ways, causing people to make the same comparison Gottfried had made two years earlier — including, of course, Trump’s current running mate J.D. Vance. 

Ian Ziering could not be reached for comment for this article.