Former California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger jokingly cried after he was quizzed on whether the president liked him during an interview on Jimmy Kimmel Live.
Schwarzenegger, a Republican who backed Kamala Harris for the presidency in November’s election, was asked by Kimmel Wednesday night whether Donald Trump likes him, as well as what he thought about the Los Angeles riots.
“I think that you’re a person who is trusted on both sides and that’s very rare nowadays,” Kimmel said. “I think probably Donald Trump doesn’t want you to be trusted because I don’t think Donald Trump likes you very much, to be honest.”
“True?” Kimmel jibed while the 77-year-old began to crumple up his face as if he were crying.
Schwarzenegger has said in the past that he “will always be an American before I am a Republican”, citing it as a reason for his Harris and Tim Walz vote in November 2024.
When asked for his thoughts on the LA anti-ICE protests, he told Kimmel, “This wouldn’t happen if the politicians would do their work. Think about it.”
“The Democrats and the Republican’s have no interest in solving this problem [immigration] because they use that to raise money and so what they do is they just keep pointing the finger at each other and then they’re surpised if all of a sudden we are using our ‘middle finger’ on them.”
“It’s all bogus because I think we can do better than that,” he added.
He added later on, “The whole thing is to do with deportation.
“Of course, this is a very sensitive subject for me because when I came over to this country, I was living in fear of being deported,” before joking that he was scared he was going to be deported for ‘creative reasons.’
Having grown up in Austria, Schwarzenegger idolised the United States and the American way of life.
“Everything that I have ever accomplished in my life is because of America – that’s the bottom line,” he told Kimmel.
Schwarzenegger moved to California in 1968, when he was just 21, despite not being fluent in English, and “it was a disaster,” he says, because of the political uproar at the time.
Yet, he began to pave the way for his career, starting as an established bodybuilder, where he won several world titles after his move.
By the 1980s, Schwarzenegger had achieved Hollywood stardom, starring in numerous action movies of the era. He became a US citizen in 1983.
A decade later, the star had become increasingly politically active as a Republican, running for the California governorship, where he won, and was sworn in as the 38th Governor of California on November 17, 2003.
He was the first foreign-born governor of California since Irish-born Gov. John G. Downey in 1862.
During his tenure from 2003 to 2011, Schwarzenegger focused his efforts on reducing California's greenhouse gas emissions, increasing the minimum wage, and updating the state's workers' compensation system.
Naturally, physical education and after-school programs were also a core focus of his. He endorsed the After-School Education & Safety Act, which passed in 2002.
