Arnold Schwarzenegger has a theory about the reason U.S. President Donald Trump is constantly slamming him on social media – he thinks he’s in love with him.

The Terminator star and president regularly exchange barbs on their Twitter pages, with the most recent coming after Trump alleged that Schwarzenegger was fired from The Celebrity Apprentice, which he formerly hosted, after poor ratings. Schwarzenegger hit back insisting that wasn’t true, and was asked how he felt about constantly being a target for the new president during an interview on SiriusXM’s The Michael Smerconish Program on Tuesday.
“I think he’s in love with me,” Schwarzenegger said.
When Smerconish laughed, “Is that what it is?”, Schwarzenegger didn’t break his deadpan stony face as he replied, “Yeah, I think so”.
Smerconish then commented that Schwarzenegger and Trump have had a “long relationship”, to which the 69-year-old actor answered, “Oh yes”.
Realizing he wasn’t going to get much from his guest about the topic of his Twitter feud with Trump, Smerconish asked, “That’s all you are saying on that?” which elicited a chuckle from Schwarzenegger.
The radio host then signed off the interview by referring to Schwarzenegger’s former position as Governor of California as he said, “Thank you, Governor”. Laughing heartily, Schwarzenegger replied: “Absolutely!”
Schwarzenegger and Trump clashed last week after the actor revealed on Friday in an interview with Empire he had decided to quit his post as host of The Celebrity Apprentice after anchoring the show for just one season.
While announcing his resignation, Schwarzenegger blamed Trump for the reality series’ poor ratings, and on Saturday the controversial 45th U.S. President hit back.
“Arnold Schwarzenegger isn’t voluntarily leaving the Apprentice, he was fired by his bad (pathetic) ratings, not by me. Sad end to great show,” Trump, who hosted The Celebrity Apprentice for over a decade and still serves on the production behind-the-scenes as executive producer, posted on his Twitter account.
However, less than an hour after Donald published his insulting tweet, Schwarzenegger took to his own account on the platform to launch his counter-attack.
“You should think about hiring a new joke writer and a fact checker,” Schwarzenegger quipped.