Donald Trump’s lawyer has announced that the leaders of America’s largest Churches are being sued by his client over their failure to improve the ratings of the TV show The Celebrity Apprentice.

This follows the urging by Trump at the National Prayer Breakfast for Church leaders to pray for the current season with Arnold Schwarzenegger which has not being doing well.

The show has failed to improve since, and Schwarzenegger has now said he will not return next season. The suit contends that by sitting there and looking dumbfounded – instead of unambiguously refusing to help – the assembled religious figures implicitly entered a verbal contract to help save the show’s bottom line which they subsequently failed to live up to.

Trump is seeking damages for loss of earnings in his capacity as executive producer and part owner of the show, saying his belief that the religious leaders would do something prompted him to focus less on the show, and more on his other job.

“Mr. Trump still did his part to promote the struggling franchise by picking a twitter fight with Mr. Schwarzenegger, despite having many competing demands on his time as leader of the free world.”

The case will be heard before an arbitration judge next week, whom Mr. Trump has already derided as a biased incompetent as part of his legal strategy.