Schwarzenegger to Trump: ‘Why don’t we switch jobs?’

NEW YORK — President Donald Trump and Arnold Schwarzenegger were embroiled in a long-distance feud on Thursday after the president used a prayer breakfast speech to taunt the action star about his reality show ratings, and Schwarzenegger fired back in a video posted on Twitter.

To be clear, this is actually happening.

The fireworks began on Thursday morning, when Mr Trump used the typically solemn occasion of the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington to needle Schwarzenegger as “a total disaster” on The New Celebrity Apprentice, the latest incarnation of the NBC reality franchise that catapulted Mr Trump to national stardom.

“They hired a big, big movie star, Arnold Schwarzenegger, to take my place, and we know how that turned out,” Mr Trump said, as Mark Burnett, the Apprentice creator who has become an active champion of Christian causes, listened a few feet away.

“The ratings went right down the tubes,” Mr Trump continued. “Mark will never, ever bet against Mr Trump again. And I want to just pray for Arnold, if we can, for those ratings.”

Minutes later, Schwarzenegger responded in a 15-second video posted to his Twitter account.

“Hey Donald, I have a great idea — why don’t we switch jobs?” said Schwarzenegger, his face filling the screen. “You take over TV, because you’re such an expert in ratings, and I take over your job.

“And then people can finally sleep comfortably again,” Schwarzenegger added, with an impish grin.

It was not Mr Trump’s first jab at Schwarzenegger, whose debut as Apprentice host last month earned a rough review from the television critic-in-chief.

“Wow, the ratings are in and Arnold Schwarzenegger got ‘swamped’ (or destroyed) by comparison to the ratings machine, DJT,” Mr Trump tweeted in early January.

That prompted Schwarzenegger to post a video of himself reading from Abraham Lincoln’s first inaugural address.

“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 tweeted at the time.

The president’s press secretary, Sean Spicer, was asked at his Thursday briefing why Trump chose the National Prayer Breakfast to comment on television ratings.

“He meant it as a lighthearted moment, and I think if you look at the totality of his remarks, they were absolutely beautiful,” Mr Spicer replied.

He noted that Burnett was a longtime supporter of the prayer breakfast and “a personal friend” of the president.

Mr Trump, who remains a paid executive producer of The New Celebrity Apprentice, is an avid tracker of Nielsen numbers; he framed a Variety ratings chart from the first season of The Apprentice and hung it in his Trump Tower office.

When NBC created a version of The Apprentice with Martha Stewart in 2005, Mr Trump routinely called television journalists to point out Stewart’s lacklustre numbers.

The president is also correct that Schwarzenegger’s numbers have been disappointing. The Celebrity Apprentice has been mired at the bottom of its time slot among the major broadcast networks, according to Nielsen statistics. The show routinely draws about half as many viewers as The Bachelor, the reality show that runs at the same time on ABC.

It would be possible for Mr Trump to quit the White House and resume his hosting role in prime time. (In fact, the ratings would likely be high.) But Schwarzenegger, while a former governor of California, would face some roadblocks in becoming president, including the fact that he was born in Austria. THE NEW YORK TIMES