Arnold Schwarzenegger wrote on X today that he voted Kamala Harris and Tim Walz, saying he’ll “always be an American before I’m a Republican.”

The former GOP California governor wrote: “To be honest with you: I don’t like either party right now. My Republicans forgot the beauty of the free market, ran up deficits, and rejected election results. Democrats are no better at dealing with deficits and I worry that their local policies will hurt our cities by increasing crime.

“It’s probably no surprise that I hate politics more than ever, which if you’re a normal person who isn’t addicted to that crap you probably understand. I want to log out.

“But I can’t. Because rejecting election results is about as un-American as it gets. For someone like me who talks to people all over the world and still knows that America is the shining city on a hill, calling America a garbage can to the world is so unpatriotic, it makes me angry. And I will always be an American before I am a Republican. That’s why this week I’m voting for Kamala Harris and Tim Walz.”

Schwarzenegger said he went public with his support for Harris because “I also understand that people want to hear from me because I’m not just a celebrity, I’m a former Republican governor.”

Schwarzenegger governed largely as a moderate during his tenure, which lasted from 2003 to 2011, and at times clashed with the state Republican party.

Even though both have parlayed their celebrity status into political careers, the relationship between Trump and Schwarzenegger has been frosty to say the least. After Trump was elected in 2016, Schwarzenegger became the host apprentice for one season, but informed the network that he would not be returning due to the “baggage” associated with the show. Trump, who was president at the time, fired Schwarzenegger for “bad (pathetic) ratings.”

After the attack on the Capitol on January 6, 2021, Schwarzenegger POSTED a video message in which he said Trump “will go down in history as the worst president ever” and said he was trying to create a coup by “misleading the people with lies.”

Schwarzenegger wrote that “a candidate who won’t respect your vote unless it’s for him, a candidate who will send his supporters storming the Capitol while he watches with a Diet Coke, a candidate who has not demonstrated his ability to working to pass policy on a tax cut that helped his donors and other rich people like me but didn’t help anyone else, a candidate who believes that Americans who disagree with him are his bigger enemies than China, Russia or North Korea – that will not solve us. problems.

“It will just be four years of fruitless nonsense that will make us angrier and more divided and nastier. We need to close the door on this chapter of American history, and I know former President Trump will not do that. He will divide, he will insult, he will find new ways to be more un-American than he already was, and we the people will only get more anger.”