Actor and former California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has endorsed Kamala Harris for president.
Schwarzenegger, a Republican who served as California’s governor from 2003 to 2011, criticized both parties in a lengthy post on X Wednesday morning before revealing he will be casting his ballot for the vice president.
“Let me be honest with you: I don’t like either party right now,” the Terminator actor wrote. “My Republicans have forgotten the beauty of the free market, driven up deficits, and rejected election results. Democrats aren’t any better at dealing with deficits, and I worry about their local policies hurting our cities with increased crime.”
“And I will always be an American before I am a Republican,” he added. “That’s why, this week, I am voting for Kamala Harris and Tim Walz.”
The former governor went on to criticize Trump.
“But 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,” Schwarzenegger wrote, “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.”
“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.
He closed his endorsement message with a call for all voters to cast their ballot, regardless of their preferred candidate: “Vote this week. Turn the page and put this junk behind us. And even if you disagree with me, vote, because that’s what we do as Americans.”
Schwarzenegger revealed he would not be voting red for the first time ever in 2016, when Trump faced off against Hillary Clinton for the presidency.
“For the first time since I became a citizen in 1983, I will not vote for the Republican candidate for President,” Schwarzenegger said at the time. “As proud as I am to label myself a Republican, there is one label that I hold above all else — American.”
He also condemned the deadly January 6, 2021 Capitol riots, urging Americans to support then-president-elect Joe Biden, who legitimately won the 2020 election despite false claims from Trump and other right-wing figures of voter fraud.
“President-elect Biden, we wish you great success as our president,” Schwarzenegger said soon after the violent attack. "To those who think they can overturn the United States Constitution, know this: you will never win."
