Doing his part to campaign for Republican hopeful Mitt Romney in Michigan, Donald Trump phoned into the “Art Lewis Show,” on WSGW in the Flint-Saginaw media market and lit into Rick Santorum. “There’s nothing – there’s no gift, no Christmas gift, that could be given better than Rick Santorum to the Democrats,” lambasted Trump. “They are just salivating at that. And, you know, I don’t think they believe it’s going to happen. But boy, would they like it to happen because that would be an easy election.”

On Sunday night’s premiere of Celebrity Apprentice, Donald Trump was doing his customary boardroom quizzing of contestants after a sandwich challenge, eventually making his way to Miss Universe, Dayana Mendoza, who was credited with bringing in a lot of money for charity during the challenge.

A few days ago on On the Record, newly minted Mitt Romney surrogate Donald Trump told host Greta Van Susteren that he could barely believe a loser like Rick Santorum was running for president, colorfully adding “give me a break!” to the fact that someone who lost his Senate seat so decisively thinks he can beat President Obama. Being a proactive sort, Santorum told Van Susteren last night that he reacted by picking up the phone and calling Trump directly, and asking for an explanation.

On Thursday, Donald Trump lit into MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell on Twitter, mocking him that his show will soon be cancelled. “Lawrence O’Donnell will soon have another cancelled show to go along with his three cancelled TV series, “Mister Sterling”, “The Kill Point” and “First Monday”,” Trump tweeted.

A mere minutes after Donald Trump had gone through the many, many ways he thought Rick Santorum was a loser on Fox News, over at MSNBC, he found himself on the receiving end of the same. It is no big secret that Lawrence O’Donnell isn’t a huge fan of Trump, but what may be news delivered by O’Donnell is his belief that Mitt Romney, Trump’s candidate in the Republican primary, thinks Trump is “a buffoon, and unconfirmable joke, America’s biggest loser.”

The day after Rick Santorum acquired his most impressive wins of the Republican primary so far, we finally got to see what it would mean for Mitt Romney to have Donald Trump as his surrogate. The Donald sat down with Greta Van Susteren to react to, among other things, Santorum’s three-for-three win last night in Colorado, Missouri, and Minnesota, and was profoundly unimpressed, repeating several times that Santorum lost his Senate seat “by a record number” and suggesting he pursue a career as a lawyer, instead.

Wednesday morning, CNN’s Early Start aired an interview with Donald Trump, which was taped before Rick Santorum swept the Tuesday night primary/caucus contests. In the interview, Trump defends his endorsement of Mitt Romney, but takes time to absolutely skewer Santorum.

Appearing on Fox and Friends Monday, Donald Trump took no time in giving himself credit for Mitt Romney‘s landslide victory in the Nevada caucus. “There was a lot riding on that particular race in Nevada and it was interesting, because the numbers were much, much greater than you thought,” Trump gloated. “And a lot of people are giving me credit for that. And I will accept that credit!”

Mitt Romney easily won Nevada last night, but this past week has also been notable for Romney thanks to a surprise last-minute endorsement by famed recluse Donald Trump. Trump has now promised to drop the whole notion of running as an independent for the presidency if Romney ends up being the Republican nominee. But having the association between the two businessmen may not be working in Romney’s favor.

Indiana governor Mitch Daniels made an appearance on Fox & Friends Friday, where he spoke optimistically on the future of his state, this weekend’s Super Bowl, and made a subtle dig at a certain reality TV host.

On Thursday’s Daily Show, Jon Stewart had a revelation to share — despite the soap operatic nature of the 2012 GOP nomination race (“some fine debate, dramatic story lines”) he has felt a certain “emptiness” in his life — a “mogul-shaped hole” in his heart. Finally, this morning, Stewart had some hope in the world, when news broke that Donald Trump was making a major announcement. “I haven’t been this happy to see an orange face again since the end of Finding Nemo!”

Lawrence O’Donnell fiercely lambasted Donald Trump‘s endorsement of Mitt Romney on Thursday night’s edition of The Last Word. “Every single word that Donald Trump says publicly, every word, is designed to get attention to him so that he can pump up the ratings of his TV show,” O’Donnell jabbed. “…Because unlike Mitt Romney, Donald Trump still has to work for a living, and he so desperately needs the couple of million dollars that he makes on TV that he must spend his life promoting his show…

Ron Paul was not impressed with Donald Trump’s endorsement of Mitt Romney Thursday and sent out a campaign email lambasting the media’s extensive coverage.

Fresh off his endorsement of Republican hopeful Mitt Romney, real estate mogul Donald Trump appeared on CNN’s The Situation Room and faced tough questioning from anchor Wolf Blitzer. Blitzer cited a CNN poll that showed high disapproval ratings for Trump, asking “Is this going to help Mitt Romney — your endorsement or hurt Mitt Romney?”

Well, it happened. Donald Trump, a man who once (seriously) was the GOP front runner, has endorsed the current front runner, Mitt Romney. Romney was on hand to accept the endorsement and it wasn’t…uh…entirely the most uncomfortable thing we’ve watched all week.

Fox News’ Shepard Smith is clearly none too interested in Donald Trump’s endorsement of Mitt Romney. Reporting that the Apprentice host’s speech would be coming up in the next few hours, he gave it all the respect and seriousness he felt it deserved.

In other words, he then joked that endorsements from Shakira and Big Bird would be coming next.

Real estate mogul and reality star Donald Trump will reportedly endorse Mitt Romney during a press conference in Las Vegas, Nevada. Will there be fireworks? Will reporters ask Romney about Trump’s birth certificate allegations? Will Romney announce Trump to his running mate? Anything can happen.

Donald Trump is a reality TV personality who was the frontrunner in national Republican polls last February. That was back when his “people in Hawaii” “couldn’t believe” the stuff they were finding about the President’s birth certificate, creating a national idiom (“Where did you hear that silly rumor, Donald Trump’s people in Hawaii?”). Then Seth Meyers killed Trump’s presidential hopes, but the ghost still haunts us today, and refuses to go away. Tomorrow, in Las Vegas, Trump has promised a “major announcement,” on pertaining to the Republican race.

Political mastermind and reality TV star Donald Trump visited the set of Good Morning America, where he discussed GOP candidates Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich, particularly where their personal wealth is concerned.

The famously media-shy Donald Trump took time from his busy schedule of not being on TV to sit down for an interview with Face the Nation‘s Bob Schieffer. And in the interview, Trump admitted he is still considering running for president because he is still very discouraged by the Republican field. In fact, when Schieffer asked him whether he would run as a Republican or an independent, Trump chose the latter.

They grow up so fast, don’t they? Online political media giant Politico turns five years old today, and to celebrate, the site posted a video roast by some quotable notables in the political media world. While the site has arguably earned the right to toot its own horn at least once every half-decade, did they really have to overshadow the birthday of Saved By The Bell actress Tiffani-Amber Thiessen?

Sarah Palin isn’t one to dally around after the holidays for much time, making her first Fox News appearance of the year– a nineteen minute doozy– on Your World two days into 2012 with host Eric Bolling, and ran the gamut of topics from every 2012 candidate to the potential of third-party candidates. She was particularly vocal in defending Donald Trump, who she insisted had a lot to offer and told his detractors “enough is enough, shut up about it.”

Newly “unaffiliated” mogul and reality television star Donald Trump called in to Fox and Friends Monday morning to discuss his plans for a third party run, taking some time to weigh in on a recent move by Texas-based activists to create a “Make America Great Again” party.

In the world of the microscopic news cycle, a year is a mighty long time. Think “dog years” on steroids. Over the course of the past year, in thousands (around 7,500 ) of articles and millions (between 3 and 4 million) of words, Mediaite has covered the ups and downs of that whizzing, ricocheting media world. In case you lost track in that sea of information, we’ve compiled a list of 2011 Media Winners and Losers that we hope will be the start  of a conversation, not the end of one. Here, in no particular order, are Mediaite’s 2011 Media Winners and Losers.

As we enter the new year, the most important question on people’s mind is whether or not the world will officially end as we know it by next December. But let’s face it, if 2012 is really going to bring about end times (because we should clearly be basing our plans for the end on the Mayan calendar), it’s going to have a tough act to follow. Many people are writing up 2011 as the year of this or the year of that, but let’s keep things in perspective here: 2011 was the year that the world descended into random chaos.