'Apprentice' winner refuses to share title

Tonight’s “Apprentice” lesson should have been one in foreshadowing. During the entire “Apprentice 4” finale, one thing was clear: Donald Trump was going to hire both Randal and Rebecca as his newest employees.

Right before he made his decision, Trump praised both candidates, offering only faint criticism. In the final boardroom, George told Trump, “It’s no question, they’re both stars, and I think either one of them would be an excellent choice for the organization.”

And George was right. After their final boardroom appearance, Trump seemed like he was ready to hire both. Live in Lincoln Center, when he asked the two candidates to select the job they’d prefer to manage if hired, they each selected a different task: Randal wanted to work on expanding Trump’s bankrupt Atlantic City casinos, while Rebecca preferred to help develop a residential complex in New Jersey.

Everything was in place for Trump to conclude a season of mass firings (two here, four there, two more here) with a dual hiring.

“I based my company, and in fact, I based my whole life around really good people. It’s very important to me. This isn’t just a television show, this is about hiring somebody for a long period of time,” he said, confirming that he was ready to hire two very good people. But then our billionaire buddy surprised us.

“Rebecca, you’re outstanding. Randal, you’re hired,” Trump said.

The band struck up the “Apprentice” theme song and Randal leapt up, hugging his friends in the cast. How could this be? What about Rebecca? Then Trump called for Randal to return to the table repeatedly. Trump, ever the showman, was just trying to squeeze out a little bit more melodrama before the double-hiring.

At least, that’s the way it appeared.

“If you were me, would you hire Rebecca also?” he asked Randal, and we all knew what was coming next. After getting the nod from Randal, Donald Trump was going to make “Apprentice” history and hire Rebecca too.

Selfish when he could have been selfless
But then Randal, who’s perhaps played the game with more integrity than anyone else in four seasons of “The Apprentice,” and who earned the respect of basically every other candidate in the suite this season, surprised everyone.

“Mr. Trump, I firmly believe that this is ‘The Apprentice,’ that there is one and only one apprentice, and if you’re going to hire someone tonight, it should be one,” Randal said. “It’s not ‘The Apprenti,’ it’s ‘The Apprentice.’”

For some reason, this impossibly lame and aggressively selfish argument convinced Trump, who kind of shrugged and said, “Okay, I’m going to leave it at that then. I think I could have been convinced, but you feel that’s the way it should be, I’m going to leave it that way.”

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