Here’s a shock: Donald Trump says the celebrity edition of The Apprentice is the best yet, as he had to accept far fewer stars than even applied for his show.

“I think it’s important to say for every person we took on, we turned down five. I never knew there were so many celebrities, to be honest with you,” Trump told reporters during a recent conference call.

In the end, 14 D-List celebrities were accepted for The Apprentice’s seventh season, which is scheduled to premiere Thursday, January 3 on NBC.

“What really surprised me was the fact that I wasn’t exactly sure what I was getting. These are people that are successful celebrities, some unbelievably successful,” said Trump. “And we’ve really had an amazing crop of people. I didn’t know whether or not they were going to take it that seriously.

I didn’t know whether or not they were going to be as competitive as kids getting out of Harvard and Yale, and Wharton, and all the different schools who, you know, were fighting for their lives. It turned out to be, I think, the best Apprentice we’ve done and that includes Apprentice Number One which actually became, for many weeks, the number one show on television.

“I really, in some cases in particular, had a hard time firing some of these people because I’ve known them not necessarily personally, but I’ve known their achievements,” continued Trump.

“It’s much more difficult. And that was, to me, the biggest difference between this and firing some young kid from Harvard who did a bad job. That was not hard for me, but firing somebody that I, in many ways, grew up with or watched over the last 25 years or 5 years or 2 years, was much more difficult because they’re people of great achievement.

And it’s hard for me to fire people of great achievement. But they deserved it and they got fired.”

Donald Trump and MTV are joining forces on a reality series that will mix The Apprentice with The Real World… and star the winners of Trump’s beauty pageants. Of course.

Variety reports that the half-hour series will be called Pageant Place and will see Miss Universe, Miss USA and Miss Teen USA living in the same New York apartment.

Former Miss USA Tara Conner, who became the subject of controversy after reports of her partying surfaced last year, will also star, serving as a kind of den mother and chaperone to the women.

“We’d been thinking about everything that happens backstage and how women like Tara captured the imagination of so many of us, including a slob named Rosie O’Donnell, who didn’t like that I gave Tara a second chance,” Trump said in an interview, “And we thought, Wouldn’t it be great if we let the cameras roll?”

Donald, it would be wonderful.

The three women who hold the pageant crowns always live in the same Gotham apartment during their yearlong reign anyway, as they attend to their functions as pageant winners; this year they will simply live in front of cameras.

The first season of Pageant Place will follow the women - current Miss Universe Riyo Mori, Miss USA Rachel Smith and Miss Teen USA Katie Blair - as they model, make appearances on behalf of various causes and embark on international trips.

It could also feature drama between Conner and Blair, who have sometimes have had a rocky relationship. And sometimes have had a hot and sexy relationship.

Forget business school: Donald Trump is apparently ready send some ladies to charm school.

The Donald and Fox are developing Lady or a Tramp, a new reality competition series that would take a group of girls out of their wild and crazy lifestyles and send them to charm school where they’ll attempt to become proper women. Sound like Flavor of Love Girls: Charm School?

For good reason, probably. It basically is.

Reportedly, The Apprentice star will serve as Lady or a Tramp’s executive producer and could possibly come on air to check on the progress being made by the girls.

Lady or a Tramp is based on Ladette to Lady, a British reailty show in which a group of women are sent to Britain’s Eggleston Hall charm school, according to Variety. Trump’s American edition will reportedly follow a similar format and test its contestants on how to live like a debutante through a series of challenges, with one girl being “expelled” from the school at the end of each episode.

The show would also show viewers the validity of its contestants’ wild and crazy ways by broadcasting “ample footage” of their partying, according to Variety.

Now that The Apprentice has been left off NBC’s fall schedule, Donald Trump needs new ways to get back into the reality TV spotlight.

Fortunately, Dallas Mavericks Owner Mark Cuban has a few suggestions. He lets The Donald know what career steps to follow in a recent blog entry…

1. You can travel the world over and give speeches on brand dilution. Explaining how a brand that was once synonymous with the finest real estate in the world is now synonymous with a canceled TV show, water, steaks, a doll, mortgages, vodka, a perfume, a game and an online University that tries to sell questionable advice and products and is one of the biggest spammers on the Internet.

2. You can go to VH1 and ask to be on the celebrity fitness show.

3. They need a replacement for [Rosie O'Donnell] on The View….

4. Also on VH1, I Love New York will be starting up production again. I promise you that you would get record ratings if you become one of her potential boyfriends.

5. You could produce the Broadway version of “Raising Arizona”. You could play H.I. and work with your new born son, riding his coattails as the star of the show.

6. Could anyone play the part of Judge Smails in a remake of Caddyshack better than you ?

Or best of all, you can go back to NBC and ask for one more season of The Apprentice. Me against You. We let the audience pick the tasks and our teams and we let Rosie O’Donnell and Melania be in the boardroom and decide who wins or loses. I would do it just to see those two sitting next to each other.

What do you say ? You up for it ?

Donald Trump gave $10,000 to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger of California to help pay off campaign debts a little more than a month after Mr. Schwarzenegger appeared as a guest star on Mr. Trump’s television program The Apprentice: Los Angeles, according to a campaign filing.

In an episode broadcast on March 18, Mr. Schwarzenegger played host to five of the show’s contestants in his private conference room at the Capitol.

The governor denies any link between the donation and the television appearance, but some political watchdog groups are skeptical.

“He’s clearly using his personal friendships and his celebrity to pay off his campaign debt, and that’s just wrong,” said Jamie Court, president of the Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights, a group that tracks campaign donations.

A Schwarzenegger spokeswoman, Julie Soderlund, said the April 20 donation was not connected to the governor’s appearance on the The Apprentice. The taping took place earlier in the year, but Ms. Soderlund was unsure of the date.

The Donald could not be reached for comment at his company’s headquarters in New York.

The donation was Mr. Trump’s first to Mr. Schwarzenegger, whom he described as a great friend when he told a group of contestants that they would meet him as a reward for winning a competition.