Arnold Schwarzenegger says he’d make ‘great president,’ but calls for ‘young blood’ in 2024

Arnold Schwarzenegger can’t run to be become president of the United States, but he’s convinced if he could, he’d be a formidable leader.

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“I feel like I would make a great president,” the 76-year-old Hollywood legend confidently delcared in a new interview with the BBC, adding that “everything I’ve accomplished was because of America.”

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“America gave me so many opportunities and the American people were so embracive, and they just received me with open arms. There was no one there that stopped me from my success,” he said.

The Austrian-born bodybuilder-turned-actor governed California for two terms from 2003 to 2011, but is ineligible to run for the presidency because he isn’t a natural-born U.S. citizen.

“The only thing that I can’t do, which is run for president. I’m not going to complain about that,” he continued, adding the constitution should be amended but that it would be “a little bit selfish if I go out and try to change the law.”

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So with the 2024 election shaping up to be a rematch between President Joe Biden (gasp, age 80) and former leader Donald Trump (gulp, age 77), Schwarzenegger is pleading for someone younger to enter the fray.

“I just hope that America finds some really young blood,” he said. “Because to me, it is a little bit odd that we are having a battle between people today in the late 70s and early 80s, rather than people in the 40s and 50s or maybe even younger and have them have a chance at this great, great job.”

Schwarzenegger joined Rob Lowe for an interview earlier this month on SiriusXM’s Literally! With Rob Lowe, when the St. Elmo’s Fire star asked him what it meant to be a Democrat.

“Ruin your cities,” he responded. “That’s what the Democrats would say. We are about ruining the cities. We want to f— up every city in America. That seems to be the theme right now.”

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Schwarzenegger is a Republican, but his more centrist views on divisive issues like abortion and climate change have been in opposition to some of his fellow conservatives.

The Terminator star has also been vocal in his opposition to former president Donald Trump, calling him “the worst president ever” in 2021.

But with Trump at the forefront of candidates running to lead the Republicans in next year’s presidential race, Schwarzenegger was asked in a recent conversation if he thought the businessman could win the presidency again, to which he said, “I don’t think it’s going to happen.”

“I just don’t think that you get reelected with 30% or 33% of the people voting for you in your polls,” he said in an interview on CNN’s Who’s Talking to Chris Wallace [per The Hill].

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“You need the swing voters. You need the independents, you need everybody to jump in there in order to win,” Schwarzenegger said of Trump’s chances of returning to the White House. “You have to drag a lot of people over across that line. And so the question is, can he do that? I believe he can’t.”

Wallace reminded Schwarzenegger he’s miscalculated Trump’s popularity before when he predicted he was “going to be irrelevant” following the 2021 Capitol riots.

“You said he’s going to be irrelevant. He’s not, in fact: He’s the leading candidate for the Republican nomination,” Wallace said.

“We don’t know the future. I just predicted that,” Schwarzenegger replied. “But we will see — remember the future still goes on. So we will see in a few years from now how right I was or not … eventually, I think it will be true. I will be right.”

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But Schwarzenegger, who immigrated to the U.S. in 1968 and became a U.S. citizen in 1983, was quick to say that if he was eligible, he would run for U.S. president.

“I mean, I think the field was wide open in 2016. And I think the field is open right now. I mean, think about it right now. I mean, who is there? There is really not a person that can bring everyone together,” he said.

mdaniell@postmedia.com

X: @markhdaniell

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