Arnold Schwarzenegger Tells CNN: Trump Won’t Be Re-Elected

Former California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger says Donald Trump won’t be returning to the White House after the 2024 election. “I’m not worried about it because I don’t think it’s going to happen,” Schwarzenegger said in an interview with CNN’s Chris Wallace.

While Trump has performed well in recent polls—even beating President Biden by six points in a Harvard CAPS-Harris poll released Friday—the former president’s legal problems are hurting him among independents, with nearly two-thirds of independent voters saying they think the charges are serious, according to a new ABC News/Ipsos survey.

“I just don’t think that you get re-elected with 30% or 33% of the people voting for you in your polls…it’s not enough,” Schwarzenegger told Wallace. “You need the swing voters. You need the independents. You need everybody to jump in there in order to win. You have to drag a lot of people over across that line. And so the question in, can he do that? I believe he can’t.”

Asked about the federal charges Trump faces, Schwarzenegger said “if the charges are correct, then he’s going to be in deep trouble.”

Wallace asked Schwarzenegger if he’d run for president if not for the Constitutional limitation that presidents be natural born U.S. citizens, he said “yes, of course,” saying that the 2024 field—despite Trump’s outsized presence—remains “wide open.”

“It’s a no brainer,” Schwarzenegger said. “I see so clearly how I could win that that election. I mean, it’s like me and California. And when that was, you know, running for governor, it was clear that people are looking for some new answer, not a right wing or left wing, but someone that can bring the nation together. There’s just so many things that need to be done. And can be done. And what makes it so wonderful is because it’s doable. It’s all doable, or at least it’s just people coming together and say yes, we can do it.”