‘Celebrity Apprentice’: Donald Trump Tweets Congrats To Arnold Schwarzenegger On New Hosting Gig
Celebrity Apprentice has a new host, and his name is Arnold Schwarzenegger. What’s more, it looks like former host Donald Trump is happy about it, even though Arnold Schwarzenegger is an immigrant.
Trump tweeted his congratulations to Schwarzenegger on Monday after Arnold was tipped to be the new Celebrity Apprentice host by NBC.
Congrats to my friend @Schwarzenegger who is doing next season’s Celebrity Apprentice. He’ll be great & will raise lots of $ for charity.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 14, 2015
Congrats to my friend @Schwarzenegger who is doing next season’s Celebrity Apprentice. He’ll be great & will raise lots of $ for charity. — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 14, 2015
Trump did, in fact, have to give up his Celebrity Apprentice hosting duties when he announced his bid for the presidential nomination. However, as Gossip Cop points out, NBC cut all ties with Donald Trump after he made disparaging comments about Mexican immigrants during the speech that announced his quest for the presidency.
Schwarzenegger tweeted his gratitude for all the congratulatory tweets he received after the news of his new job became public.
Wow. I’m blown away and honored by all your tweets. I can’t wait to bring my experience to the board room & raise millions for charity.
— Arnold (@Schwarzenegger) September 14, 2015
“Arnold Schwarzenegger is the epitome of a global brand in entertainment and business, and his accomplishments in the political arena speak for themselves,” Paul Telegdy, NBC’s president for alternative and late night programming, said via a statement.
“It was Arnold’s personal passion for the format that Mark Burnett and Donald Trump built over the last decade, as well as his fresh take on how to take it to new heights for today’s audiences, that made him the man to hire,” Telegdy continued.
Celebrity Apprentice producers are hoping that casting a high-profile media personality like Schwarzenegger will inject some new buzz into a TV franchise that hasn’t been doing so well recently.
According to CNN Money, Celebrity Apprentice Season 1 aired in 2004 with an average of over 20 million viewers. That number has dropped over the years, but it can still deliver reliable ratings for NBC. The most recent season of Celebrity Apprentice, Season 14, averaged 7.6 million total viewers when it aired earlier this year. When NBC ordered a new season, Trump was still on board, but producers reportedly had an inkling that he would be announcing his presidential bid, which prompted their search for a new host.
Celebrity Apprentice Season 15 cast has yet to be announced, and there’s no word on whether Schwarzenegger will replace Trump’s trademark phrase “You’re fired” with “Hasta La Vista, Baby.”
[Photo by Ezra Shaw/Getty Images]
