His show was a huge success, regardless of its merit. It kept his brand alive and became a rest stop for celebrities whose stars were waning to get a boost in their own visibility. Also, perhaps ironically, it was one of the most racially diverse TV shows on the air at the time, which helped it reach multiple demographics in a way that its competition couldn't.

I would say that the show is solely responsible for rehabilitating Trump's image in the pop culture, since by the nineties he was completely discredited by his long string of failures. The show let them edit out all of his rambling nonsense and just show the parts where he was acting like a stern boss, which became his new identity in the 2000s when enough people had forgotten just what a joke he had been in previous years.