A season of The Apprentice pitting black contestants against white contestants? That would be “the highest rated show on television,” according to Donald Trump.

As the debate rages on over the existence of an alleged tape of the president saying the N-word during filming of The Apprentice, a resurfaced interview with Howard Stern reveals Trump discussing a potential racially-divided season of his NBC reality show. (Trump has denied saying the N-word, while his press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Tuesday that she “can’t guarantee” a tape doesn’t exist of him saying just that.)

Trump brought up the TV idea during an appearance on The Howard Stern Show in April 2005. “There was a concept thrown out by some person: nine blacks against nine whites,” Trump matter-of-factly told Stern in the radio interview, according to audio played on-air by CNN. “And it would be nine blacks against nine whites, all highly educated, very smart, strong, beautiful people, right?”

“Do you like it?” he asked Stern, appearing to approve of the idea. Stern gave his blessing as well, while his longtime sidekick, Robin Quivers, who is black, said Trump was “going to have a riot” on his hands if he followed through with the idea.

“It would be the highest rated show on television,” Trump replied.

After Stern asked if the show would feature “very dark blacks or light-skinned blacks,” Trump joked that there would be “an assortment” of people with lighter and darker black skin tones, but that the white contestants would be made up of nine blondes.

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