Arnold Schwarzenegger Endorses Kamala Harris in Blunt Post: 'I Want to Tune Out. But I Can't'

Mar. 15, 2025

Photo:Phillip Faraone/Getty; Slaven Vlasic/Getty

Phillip Faraone/Getty; Slaven Vlasic/Getty

Arnold Schwarzeneggeris crossing the aisle to back DemocratKamala Harrisin the 2024 presidential election.

In a surprise announcement on Xon Wednesday, Oct. 30, the actor and former Republican governor of California shared that he is voting for the Democratic White House ticket this year, saying that ifDonald Trumpis elected president again “he will divide, he will insult, he will find new ways to be more un-American than he already has been.”

“It is probably not a surprise that I hate politics more than ever, which, if you are a normal person who isn’t addicted to this crap, you probably understand,” he wrote. “I want to tune out. But I can’t. Because rejecting the results of an election is as un-American as it gets. To someone like me who talks to people all over the world and still knows America is the shining city on a hill, calling America a trash can for the world is so unpatriotic, it makes me furious.”

The actor added, “And I will always be an American before I am a Republican. That’s why, this week, I am voting for Kamala Harris and Tim Walz.”

Former California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger at a Los Angeles event in June 28, 2023.Stefanie Keenan/Getty Images

Stefanie Keenan/Getty Images

Schwarzenegger said his experience as California’s governor from 2003 to 2011 brought him a love of policy, but a distrust of the politics surrounding the job. At the moment, he added, he doesn’t “like either party.”

“My Republicans have forgotten the beauty of the free market, driven up deficits, and rejected election results,” he wrote. “Democrats aren’t any better at dealing with deficits, and I worry about their local policies hurting our cities with increased crime.”

Schwarzenegger’s animosity towards Trump —which he went on record about in 2021 after the Jan. 6 insurrection at the Capitol— prompted him to speak out with less than a week to go until Election Day.

“A candidate who won’t respect your vote unless it is for him, a candidate who will send his followers to storm the Capitol while he watches with a Diet Coke, a candidate who has shown no ability to work to pass any policy besides a tax cut that helped his donors and other rich people like me but helped no one else else, a candidate who thinks Americans who disagree with him are the bigger enemies than China, Russia, or North Korea — that won’t solve our problems,” Schwarzenegger wrote.

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“It will just be four more years of bulls— with no results that makes us angrier and angrier, more divided, and more hateful,” he added. “We need to close the door on this chapter of American history, and I know that former President Trump won’t do that.”

Schwarzenegger then encouraged people to vote and concluded, “I want to move forward as a country, and even though I have plenty of disagreements with their platform, I think the only way to do that is with Harris and Walz."

source: people.com