Citizen Trump: A Director’s Mea Culpa

After a stormy ever-changing year, Robert Orlando provides new clarity to ‘Citizen Trump’ story

Joseph Serwach
5 min readJun 5, 2021
Theatrical poster for “Citizen Trump,” courtesy Nexus Media.

Ten months after the debut of Citizen Trump: A One Man Show, director Robert Orlando is back with a clarifying director’s cut now available online.

Like many deep thinkers, Orlando’s perspective on Donald Trump evolves with the evidence (he calls this updated version of the film a mea culpa).

The new film debuts as Simon & Schuster releases the book version of the same story on June 15. Below is a question and answer with the director/author:

Why come back so quickly with a second version of the same film?

Orlando: “For one, to be practical. When I made it the first time in the middle of a pandemic, we lost two-thirds of our financing, and Amazon was blocking it in the run-up to the election, so it never really had its day in the sun.”

Time passed rapidly; a new regime and racing events made us look at everything from fresh perspectives. As a result, so much of the present and future of a world without Trump is becoming more clear.”

“Trump as a big character stays the same. In the film, we show him saying he was pretty much the same guy — as a first grader. Both Trump…

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Joseph Serwach

Story + Identity = Mission. Leadership Culture, Journalism, Branding Education. Inspiration: Catholic, Polish. https://serwachjoe.medium.com/membership