Terminator actor, world champion bodybuilder, and former California Republican governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger ripped into CNN host Jake Tapper and called out the state of California for gerrymandering. A clip of the interaction is being spread on the internet. Tapper kicked off the segment by blaming the GOP for the recent rise of congressional map redistricting.
“As you acknowledged, this all started because of redistricting in Texas, and this was Trump pushing Republican-controlled states to throw out their current congressional maps, so as to cook the books, so that there is less it is less likely for Democrats to retake control of the House during the next year’s midterms. I mean, is it fair to argue that they do?” Tapper asked the actor.
He followed that up with, “Do you believe that the Republican Party is starting this?” Schwarzenegger wasted no time in shooting down the theory, saying, “No, Jake. There has been gerrymandering going on for 200 years. There is so such extreme gerrymandering going on that in a state like Massachusetts, it has like 40 percent of the people voting for Trump,” the Conan the Barbarian actor said.
“They only have zero representatives. The Republican Party has zero representatives sent to the House. Think about that. In New Mexico, if 45 percent of the people voted for Trump and vote Republican, and zero is sent to the House, zero representatives from the Republican Party,” Schwarzenegger continued to explain.
The action legend then stated that gerrymandering has been happening all over the country for a long time, going on to say, “So there’s gerrymandering, crazy gerrymandering going on all over the country, and we wanted to try to stop it in California, and we did stop it in California, and we met around the country,” he said.
“So I think this whole thing about finger pointing and said they did it, so therefore we should do it. That’s not really the way to go. The one party should outperform the other party. It should be performance. And when it comes to midterm elections, as you know, always the party that is not in the White House usually wins by 20, 25, 30 seats,” Schwarzenegger said.
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“So where does five seats matter in the first place in Texas? It is crazy. We should outperform them. That is where the action is,” he concluded. Folks had a lot to say on social media platform X where the viral clip was shared. “The gerrymandering by Democrats is ridiculous. For them to now falsely accuse Republicans of it is even more ridiculous,” one user wrote.
“They will blatantly lie and accuse Republicans of gerrymandering precisely because they have the collusion of the media to push their narrative that it’s a bad Republican thing,” another person said. “Democrats have been projecting their insanity on Republicans for at least the past 8 years. The DNC has no respect for the intellect of everyday American citizens,” another person commented on the X post.
Featured Image credit: it is a screenshot from the embedded CNN video