‘Arrested Development’ Cast Claims Donald Trump Stole Their Border Wall Idea

The cast of Arrested Development believes that President Donald Trump may have taken inspiration from their show for his campaign promises.

Several key members of the cast, including Jeffrey Tambor, Jason Bateman, Tony Hale, David Cross, Will Arnett, Alia Shawkat and Jessica Walter sat down for a talk on Entertainment Weekly Radio on Sirius XM on Monday. One of the topics they covered was the current contentious political climate, and how their show may have sparked it.

“There are so many Trump references this season,” the interviewer noted. “Are you worried he’s going to start tweeting about you guys?”

“Yeah, super worried about it,” said Arnett sarcastically. “What’s so great is how he was able to sort of shoehorn his way into our narrative that we actually created, with the wall and everything. Years before. It’s like a f–ing gift from the heavens.”

“The wall was my idea,” added Walter, who plays Lucille Bluth.

“Will’s got an interesting point there, though,” Cross said. “The stuff that was happening in season 4, that we’re continuing in season 5 — that part of the story — that’s Trump’s whole thing now. And that was years before. And the Bluths are horrible, awful people, so you make the connection as you will.”

The show returns to Netflix with a fifth season on Tuesday, May 29. Its fourth season, which centered around the construction of a border wall, aired in 2013. The season was met with mixed reviews, as it was made in a unique, non-linear style and rarely featured more than two or three cast members in the same place at the same time.

Earlier this month, a re-cut version of the season was added to Netflix. It tries to make a more conventional sitcom season out of the experiment. It was meant to prepare fans for the forthcoming new episodes.

Mitch Hurwitz, the series’ creator, posted a playful “Message to Fans of Arrested Development” on the show’s official Twitter page. There, he announced the “remix” season as well as the long-awaited new episodes.

“The original season four of Arrested Development on Netflix, as some of you know, experimented with a Rashomon–style of storytelling – with each episode dedicated to the adventure of one member of the Bluth family,” Hurwitz explained.

“The goal was that by the end of the season, a unified story of cause and effect would emerge for the viewer — full of surprises about how the Bluths were responsible for most of the misery that they had endured.”

Hurtwitz went on to explain that he had shuffled the 15 episodes of season 4 into a traditional 22 episode sitcom season, where the stories were reorganized so that each episode told a complete story. He said that the remix was “an experiment to find out, well… I guess ‘if I could make some money.’”

However, he assured his followers that the season contained “new jokes and a new perspective,” writing “I’m really excited about the final result.”