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Arnold Schwarzenegger To Donald Trump: Focus On Being President Instead Of TV Ratings [Video]

By Darien Cavanaugh
Published on: 20:40 PST, Jan 6, 2017

Arnold Schwarzenegger had a pointed response to President-elect Donald Trump’s criticism of the ratings for his Celebrity Apprentice debut: Focus on being president rather than TV ratings.

Of course, Celebrity Apprentice holds a special place in Trump’s heart. It is a spinoff of the hit reality series The Apprentice he hosted for several seasons, and he still serves as executive producer for Celebrity Apprentice.

Early Friday morning, Trump fired off a snarky two-part tweet ridiculing the blockbuster actor, body builder and former governor of California for both his mediocre ratings on his first appearance of the show and his political persuasions.

“Wow, the ratings are in and Arnold Schwarzenegger got ‘swamped’ (or destroyed) by comparison to the ratings machine, DJT,” Trump said. “So much for being a movie star-and that was season 1 compared to season 14. Now compare him to my season 1. But who cares, he supported Kasich & Hillary.”

The tweets were time stamped at 7:34 a.m. and 7:42 a.m., suggesting it took the incoming president eight minutes to compose the second part of the two-part tweet. Our future president also referred to himself — in the third person and by only his initials — as a “ratings machine.”

A few hours later, Arnold Schwarzenegger tweeted one tweet directly at Trump and a subsequent tweet that was clearly about him but did not tag him.

“There’s nothing more important than the people’s work,” Schwarzenegger said in the first tweet.

He followed that up with a tweet that said, “I wish you the best of luck and I hope you’ll work for ALL of the American people as aggressively as you worked for your ratings.”

Just for good measure, Schwarzenegger threw in another tweet with a video of him reciting his favorite passage from Abraham Lincoln’s inaugural address, and tagged Donald Trump in it. In the quoted speech, Lincoln called for unity among Americans despite their political differences. Schwarzenegger had originally posted the video on November 9, the day after the presidential election. You can watch the video below.

“Please study this quote from Lincoln’s inaugural, @realDonaldTrump,” Schwarzenegger says in the tweet. “It inspired me every day I was Governor, and I hope it inspires you.”

To be fair, the ratings for The New Celebrity Apprentice, as NBC is officially calling the show now that Arnold Schwarzenegger has taken over as host, did take a bit of a dive.

“Monday’s season launch was seen by an estimated 4.9 million people — down 43% on the last season premiere in 2015,” the BBC reported, adding, “Schwarzenegger has received mixed reviews for his debut as the new star of the show.”

Adding his own twist to the show, Schwarzenegger has opted to forgo Trump’s signature catchphrase, “You’re fired,” in favor of his own catchphrase, “You’re terminated.” The latter is, of course, a reference to his 1984 film The Terminator.

Come on, it is worth watching the show at least once just to hear Schwarzenegger say that to someone in person.

Or we could all just sit back and watch a former governor of California and the future president of the United States engage in a twitter war. Granted, Schwarzenegger kept it classier.

Thanks for the entertainment, Donald Trump and Arnold Schwarzenegger.

[Featured Image by Robert Cianflone/Getty Images]

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