The Governator wants a younger generation of politicians to run the United States — since he can’t do it himself.
“Terminator” star and former California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger shared his thoughts on the next chapter of American leadership in an interview with the BBC. More than a decade after his seven-year turn representing the Golden State, Schwarzenegger said, “I feel like I would make a great president.”
“Everything that I’ve accomplished was because of America,” Schwarzenegger told the BBC’s Colin Paterson. “The only thing that I can’t do is run for president, I’m not going to complain about that.”
Schwarzenegger, 76, was born in Thal, Austria, and moved to the United States in 1968 to pursue his bodybuilding and power-lifting career, and eventually work in Hollywood. The United States Constitution says that presidential candidates must be natural-born U.S. citizens, making Schwarzenegger ineligible.
Americans won’t vote for their next president until next November, but the 2024 presidential race has been long underway. Among the official candidates are President Joe Biden, former President Donald Trump and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.
With the presidential candidates’ ages in mind (Biden is 80, Trump is 77), Schwarzenegger says he “hope(s) that America finds some really young blood.”
He added: “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 that in the 40s and 50s or maybe even younger and have them have a chance at this great, great job.”
Schwarzenegger spoke to the BBC amid the release of his memoir, “Be Useful: Seven Tools for Life.” For The Times, Charles Arrowsmith wrote that the self-help book “is a raw deal, a hollow PR exercise filled with precepts and quips but devoid of self-awareness or humility.”
Earlier this year, Schwarzenegger revealed that he underwent a botched open-heart surgery in 2019. In a video shared to his YouTube channel in August, he said doctors “made a mistake and poked through the heart wall.”
“It was a disaster. I was in the middle of a disaster,” he recalled. He also highlighted his positive attitude and the support system that aided him in his recovery.
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