President
Trump and Arnold Schwarzenegger were embroiled in a feud on Thursday
after the president used a prayer breakfast speech to taunt
Schwarzenegger who fired back in a video posted on Twitter.
Schwarzenegger and Trump
Hollywood movie star and former Governor of California, Arnold
Schwarzenegger, has been hit by President Donald Trump's caustic
mouth at the annual National Prayer Breakfast in Washington on Thursday.
The US president kicked off the event designed to unite politicians
with religious leaders by asking the crowd to pray for his former
television series, The Apprentice and Arnold Schwarzenegger, the
programme’s new host.
After noting his own “tremendous success” as host of the
long running reality series, Trump took a swipe at Schwarzenegger, who
replaced him after he decided to run for president.
“We had tremendous success on The Apprentice and when I ran for
president, I had to leave the show. That’s when I knew for sure I was
doing it,” the 70-year-old started after thanking religious leaders for joining him.
“They hired a big movie star, Arnold Schwarzenegger, to take my
place, and we know how that turned out. The ratings went right down the
tubes. It’s been a total disaster and Mark [Apprentice creator Mark
Burnett] will never ever bet against Trump again.
“And I want to just pray for Arnold if we can, for those ratings, okay?”
Schwarzenegger, a two-term former governor of California, wasn’t
about to take the insult on the chin, and fired back not one but two
salvos through his publicist and Twitter.
In his first statement, Schwarzenegger told Trump to start taking his job seriously.
“Arnold is praying that President Trump can start improving his
own approval ratings, which were the worst in history for an incoming
president, by taking his job seriously and working inclusively.”
In a Twitter video filmed shortly afterward, the former bodybuilder and movie star then suggested they swap jobs.
“Hey Donald. I have a great idea, why don’t we switch jobs?” he asked with a smirk. “You
take over TV, because you’re such an expert in ratings and then I take
over your job. Then people can finally sleep comfortably again?”
This is not the first time Trump has trashed Schwarzenegger – a
Hillary Clinton supporter – over The Apprentice‘s ratings, which fell by
a whopping 43 per cent from last year’s premiere.
When his season aired in January, Trump took to Twitter to say Schwarzenegger had been “destroyed by comparison to ratings machine, DJT [Donald John Trump]”.
Schwarzenegger took the high road, wishing him “the best of luck”.
“I hope you’ll work for ALL of the American people as aggressively as you worked for your ratings,” he replied.
Meanwhile, at a White House press briefing, Trump’s press
secretary, Sean Spicer, defended the president’s remarks at the
breakfast, calling it a “lighthearted moment”.
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