Rosie O'Donnell says the only reason Americans voted for President Trump Donald John TrumpSteele Dossier sub-source was subject of FBI counterintelligence probe Pelosi slams Trump executive order on pre-existing conditions: It 'isn't worth the paper it's signed on' Trump 'no longer angry' at Romney because of Supreme Court stance MORE is because he was on “Celebrity Apprentice.”

O’Donnell, asked about the rise of Trump, blamed the show's creator, Mark Burnett, for creating a false pretense around the businessman-turned-politician.

“Why do you think Americans voted for him if he’s got this scurrilous past and history,” Hill.TV correspondent Jamal Simmons asked O'Donnell, who has memorably feuded with Trump.

“I think largely because of 'Celebrity Apprentice’ – I blame Mark Burnett for creating a false narrative around this man…Nobody treated him with dignity and respect until this show came on,” O’Donell said.

O'Donnell was born and raised in New York, where she said Trump had always been considered a "joke" and a "laughing stock."

“If you grew up in New York as I did, you remember when his planes were being repossessed off the runways of La Guardia, you remember the Trump Vodka, you remember the Trump steaks and the Trump University…It’s all an illusion – the man is not what he says to be or what the media allows him to portray himself as,” O’Donnell told Hill.TV.

Trump got his start working for his father’s real estate business. He has long boasted of his personal wealth, which has dropped since he taken office in 2016 and now sits at around $2.8 billion, according to Bloomberg.

— Tess Bonn