Listen, the reasons behind President Donald Trump's Twitter behavior are elusive. It's difficult to discern why he was so obsessed with Kristen Stewart, why he once gave dating advice to Katy Perry, or, most recently, why he has it out for Arnold Schwarzenegger. Regarding the latter, though, Arnold has a theory.
"I think he's in love with me," the former California governor told SiriusXM's Michael Smerconish Tuesday. As Newsweek reports, Schwarzenegger proposed this theory during an appearance on The Michael Smerconish Program.
Host Smerconish asked, "Why does [Donald Trump] keep talking about you through his Twitter feed?"
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For background, the 45th President tossed shade Schwarzenegger's way in January 2016. It all began with The Celebrity Apprentice, as many things do. It was announced in 2015 that Schwarzenegger would take on Trump's role on the NBC reality show. January 2016 saw Schwarzenegger's Celebrity Apprentice debut. (To distinguish between hosts of the reality show, the new season was called The New Celebrity Apprentice, the former host having thrown his hat into the presidential election.) Ratings for the new iteration weren't good, and Donald Trump gleefully — editorializing here — tweeted about it.
Schwarzenegger quickly clapped back. (Listen, he said he'd be back, remember?) In a polite tweet, the actor, politician, and bodybuilder wrote, "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." Schwarzenegger followed up with a video response in which he recited a quote from Abraham Lincoln's inaugural address.
It seemed that might be the end of the Schwarzenegger-Trump beef. (I want to take a moment here to remind everyone that our president is currently perpetuating this Twitter beef.) This month, Schwarzenegger announced he wouldn't be returning to the show. His statement wasn't free of shade, however — he implied that the season's poor ratings were a direct result of Trump's actions in 2017. According to Trump, though, this is all Schwarzenegger's fault.
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"Arnold Schwarzenegger isn't voluntarily leaving the Apprentice, he was fired by his bad (pathetic) ratings, not by me. Sad end to great show," Trump responded on Twitter.
But Schwarzenegger got the last word, writing, "You should think about hiring a new joke writer and a fact checker."
Smerconish has a point here in asking the question at all. Why does the leader of the free world waste his time on Arnold Schwarzenegger? (We have a few theories, but in the interest of diplomacy, we'll keep mum.) Schwarzenegger's response is in jest, but it points to the absurdity of the whole exchange. Why is Trump so celeb obsessed? Could it be that he still considers himself as one, rather than as leader of the free world? Who knows. But if it so happened that he were madly in love with Arnold Schwarzenegger, the world would be a much more interesting place.