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Who hasn't, at one time or another, regretted leaving an irate voicemail, firing off an angry e-mail, or issuing an open letter to the media viciously lambasting a longtime friend for ruining a golden reality show spin-off opportunity? Not Donald Trump, however, in whose universe cooler heads never prevail. The Donald follows up his blisteringly personal attack on Martha Stewart not with a reparative olive branch, but with an interview with Newsweek.com today that quickly turns into yet another ad hominem Martha attack, even more vitriolic than the first:

Trump: "I never liked the idea of her show. I was not a fan of her show because I thought it caused confusion. But NBC wanted it and that s fine with me. But my show continues to do well, despite what she did. And you have to understand [gets off speaker phone and picks up the receiver] . When this thing was first broached about her doing this, my show was No. 1. So what moron would think you re going to fire the guy with the No. 1 show on television.[...]

"I think she doesn t have a great television persona. She has a small group of people that like her because they like watching her make a cake, including my wife. But it s a small group of people. [...]


"I think it hurt my ratings because people were angry that we would allow them to put on a piece of garbage like that. She was terrible. But then my ratings snapped back once people realized we still had a great show. But it really did cause confusion and it caused anger among the really rabid fans. [...]

"I am very loyal. But when somebody screws me, I become a great warrior. And this woman, for her to be talking about me, that she was going to fire me? She s going to fire the person with, at the time, the No. 1 show on television. She was going to fire me? Oh yeah. What person would believe that? It doesn t make sense. But her ImClone deal didn t make sense either."

It's conviction like this repeatedly decimating the reputation of an old friend in the name of one's deluded and grotesquely overinflated notions of self-worth that make Donald Trump America's most beloved teetering-on-the-edge-of-bankruptcy captain of industry. We look forward to the fireworks display of "loyalty" he'll inevitably launch at producer Mark Burnett and his adoptive network the day NBC takes a hard look at the ratings and decides to bump his 5-seasons-long infomercial with a last minute back order of Super-Sized My Name Is Earls.