OPINION:
Arnold Schwarzenegger — remember him? He used to star in some of Hollywood’s hottest films, some decades back — has taken to Twitter with a 40-second rant against President Donald Trump.
Here’s a guy, if ever there was one, who just can’t let it go Trump won the White House.
“Oh, Donald,” Schwarzenegger mocked, “the ratings are in an you got swamped. Wow. Now you’re in the thirties?”
The reference was to a recent Gallup poll that put Trump’s approval rating at 37 percent. He went on.
“But what do you expect? I mean when you take away after school programs for children and meals on wheels for the poor people, that’s not what you call ’making American great again.’ Come on,” he said.
That reference was to Trump’s proposed budget, and all the common sense cuts to entitlement programs — common sense because taxpaying Americans shouldn’t be paying for them in the first place.
And then there was this.
“I mean, who is advising you? Let me give you some advice: go to a middle school — the Hart Middle School, right in Washington, six miles away from the White House. I’ll take you there, so you can see the fantastic work that they’re doing for these children” he said. “Let’s do it, huh?”
There’s 40 seconds you’ll never get back. Yet another left-leaning Republican who can’t get a Trump White House and is still pining for the more moderate days of a John McCain candidate, or Mitt Romney offering. Times, they have a’changed. And not just in the political world.
Hey, Ahh-nold. The old folks facility called. They said come home.
But here’s the real offense with Schwarzenegger’s Twitter rant. Hey, Ahh-nold, how about not using your personal tiff with Trump to further your own organization? Schwarzenegger, no friend of the president’s, just started his own help-the-kids group for low-income families.
Well and good.
But trying to ramp up interest in his own personal project by taking political pot shots at a president most people in America — outside the leftist enclaves, which includes Hollywood — appreciate for reeling in taxes while tightening up borders, is cheap and theatrical. Exploitative, even.
The two have traded public barbs before, most recently over Schwarzenegger’s announced departure earlier this month from “The Celebrity Apprentice” on NBC, a show started by, and starring, Trump, pre-presidency days.
“I loved every second of working with NBC and Mark Burnett,” Schwarzenegger said, the Hollywood Reporter wrote. “Everyone … was a straight 10, and I would absolutely work with all of them again on a show that doesn’t have this baggage.”
Trump, taking the “baggage” comment to heart, tweeted a day later: Schwarzenegger didn’t voluntarily leave.
“He was fired by his bad (pathetic) ratings, not by me. Sad end to a great show,” Trump wrote.
The dispute didn’t end.
Schwarzenegger then shot back with a tweet of his own: “You should think about hiring a new joke writer and a fact checker.”
Apparently, the Hollywood has-been still has some anger issues — and is trying to work them out again on Twitter.
But on this latest hit piece from Schwarzenegger: stay tuned. It’s not like Trump to let an attack go unanswered.
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