Arnold Schwarzenegger: Terminator, robbing Hollywood, leaving Austria | Full Interview

a recall election, so I basically told myself that this is a clear signal from somewhere above that if I want to run, this is the time to run. because you have Democrats and Republicans voting together and I don't have to go through a Republican primary and then I jumped into the race and you see, but you're going to see Karl Rove, well, what happened is that before the orders since he was very strongly involved in after-school programs, so we had a big after-school program outlined in Washington, so, you know, we worked together, we worked together, Bush and I.

The administration worked on this After School Program Summit, so it was natural that later I went there with the Secretary of Education appointed by Bush to go with her to the White House and just stop by to say hello to the president and also then go up and say hello to Karl Roof and uh, so I said to Karl Roof, so tell me, me I mean all this now that they are gathering signatures, uh, do you think they are talking about the album? You think this is going to happen and he says. To me, you know, Donald, they're crazy in California.

California does crazy things. I mean, I wouldn't count on that at all. I mean, they talk about it at Disney. It's a crazy state. Nobody is going to remember Gray Davis. This is the The craziest thing is so I wouldn't even pay much attention to that now this is the number one expert in politics speaking and uh I said to myself I don't know why he says that because it seems to me that the feeling that I have arriving in California that the people really want to have the retreat why is that so often so it wasn't long before we were chatting upstairs in his office and he says now he says um oh let's go downstairs.

I just got the message, let's go. Downstairs you'll meet someone who will be a really interesting candidate for 2006. By the way, if you ever want to run, that's the candidate you'll have to beat, so we go down and suddenly there's Condoleezza Rice. The Secretary of State comes up to us and she's all smiley and very friendly and that's Hi Arnold, how are you? It's good to see you and, as you know, thank you, it's a pleasure to see you. I also said you know, congratulations for the great work you have done. What we're doing and everything is that and Karl Roof says that's the candidate for 2006.

He That's the person you'd have to beat if you want to run. She was totally uncomfortable, so she didn't know he was going to say that. I mean, she's a wonderful woman, sweet and very smart and all that, and she would make a great Governor, there are no two ways about it, and obviously she would have been a tough contender, but he had no idea that I thought she was going to run for Carl I. I'm going to run long before 2006. And I'm going to show them how wrong they are, and it's true that a few months later I was governor of the state of California.

They called elections in August, early August and on August 6, I announced. under the Night Show a little Jay Leno my candidacy and then exactly two months later, on October 7, I was governor of the state of California and then I took office on November 17, 2003. And fast forward to the next time I see it , President Bush came. I went to California to visit and maybe because of some fundraising, but I remember I was asked to meet with President Bush in the Inland Empire and he was staying in a hotel there and they asked me to go to this hotel.

Then I met Bush, who I knew very well, because, as I said at Camp David, we hung out a lot, but then he said to Karo, if he says Carl, why don't you leave us alone? Karl Rove left, okay, bye, you know a little bit sheepishly and he left and then I talked to Bush and then Bush told me, basically, you know, don't hold crutches against Karl's roof because he didn't know, he thinks this would happen because I say jokingly I say I love the guy I think he's done the most incredible job for you I said and that he didn't believe in it I said that a lot of other people didn't believe there would be a recall and a lot of people didn't believe I would run for governor or that the devil would be governor eventually and all that stuff I said, I have nothing against Carl you can bring him back so anyway he came back and then we were all laughing and having a good time and like I said you know we had a relationship wonderful job after that, when there was a governor and Kyle was very supportive and the president was very supportive and all of that explains how the narrative within your family changed from the beginning.

The first time you mentioned running with your wife when you were both in the hot tub until Jay Leno Day, well, I didn't know, after all the years of knowing Maria, how much she somewhat despised politics. Then all this started to unfold when I told him in a hot tub. I said, Do you know what you think about the idea of ​​him running me for governor? Very casual question and she said: You know he would look at me like he was the bottom. He fell down and she says you're not thinking about that, huh?, huh?, and I said, yeah, I was thinking about that, look, I said, this is chaos in California, I said politicians are such idiots, I said, look what they do with this state.

This is the number one state, the number one place in the world, they are destroying it. I say I feel like I can do a better job than them. I don't have to experiment or anything like that, but I can do a better job than them. I say, I feel inside of me that I have to go and do that and she just got scared and then I said well look, I don't want to cause a scene or anything like this, you know, uh, if it's Annoying, I just forgot about the whole idea and, uh, but yeah, so there was the idea that Dick Montado would run and represent the Republican Party on Earth, but the bottom line was you know Maria , then you know it changed. her mind and she thought you know I shouldn't be in my way and I remembered that morning before I went to the late night show I should have the message and it says you know if you want to run, okay I understand, this is what you should say if you want to run and This is what you should say if you don't want to run and you haven't really decided.

No, what happened was we had meetings with Dick Monted about it and he, all of a sudden, what he actually did. The whole thing was that that mounted penis said: I don't have to shoot him in the stomach. I think you should run, so that's when I came back with my thought and that's when I told Maria, I said look, he's not going to run. And anyway, the whole thing. I went into the late night show and there I announced exactly what was really in me, which was that I had to run, they were going to have to jump in there no matter what, so when I got home that night.

After the late night show I didn't see my wife all day, she was filming and acting because she had her own show on NBC and she was doing an

interview

with someone, so I didn't talk to her all day. she had no idea where she was going and anyway the late night show I announced and of course her friends who worked at NBC there called her immediately a second later she knew and when I got home . She was like freaking out so I said to myself this is beyond my understanding because now, for the first time, I really didn't understand life.

I said how could someone grow up in a family in a political family and not like the idea of ​​the husband running for governor, but I was only thinking in one dimension, but the other dimension that I didn't think about was that she as a child was dragged by the orders of political campaigns, whether he wanted it or not, so he hated it and hated it. that she never really had maximum privacy that she was always informed about everything how much money they spent what they did on the weekend at Disneyland and that they dragged her with all the other kids in front of the press, so that was never really explained to me .

Me so they would know and then as time went on I think she, Maria, articulated it much better and then I understood why there was pain and why there was discomfort and she felt like you know who knows what things will come out and all the The world has skeletons in the closet and I don't want to feel embarrassed again like I was with my family and all this, you know, with whatever they found out, every time they responded to any of the family members, it was always embarrassing, so I totally understood it, but at that moment I felt the complete opposite, he says whatever he defines, I take that risk and I'm going to dive in, everything was nothing, at that moment I felt like it was all or nothing and I felt so convinced of that I needed. being and having to be governor and that's exactly how it all played out, you wrote in your book, being governor was more complex and challenging than you imagined in what sense, because the only time you discover how complex the job is is when you sit there, there's no training classes to be governor, even when you're a state senator, even when you're lieutenant governor, you never know until you sit there and until you're actually faced with unexpected challenges because remember we got hit. in a secondary session with a much shorter time period than what normally happens, normally it's like 10 years or so six years from now, I mean, balancing our budget in 2006, in 2007 we saw that revenue was declining, in 2008 we were 20. you are missing billions of dollars of revenue to then decide what to do and as a state you can't have a deficit you have to somehow balance the budget so obviously you are short 20 billion dollars this year, 20 billion next year, 20 billion next year, so we're entering a disaster situation, so I faced tremendous challenges as well when you get phone calls at nine at night saying we have 500 fires across the state and then you get another phone call at three in the morning saying there are now 1,500 files and then when you get up in the morning you hear another phone and it says now we have 2,000 and 13 fires in California at the same time and you know that your resources They're not available so it's complicated, but with a good team and with a lot of cuts, you know you make decisions very quickly and you have good partners like we had with the federal government, the military and the National Guard and they all came together, so that there were a lot of challenges like that, you know?

I remember the first one, after a year and a half of being in office, I had a special election to solve some of the major fiscal problems we had in California and some of the problems we had with their education and I lost. I remember the four initiatives. that they put on the ballot, so that was also a big blow because the unions raised 167 million dollars and we only raised 87. So there were crazy things like that that happened, but then a year later I came back and then when the governorship again. And I said it was like you know some days it's great and everything goes well and the budget is balanced and a deal has been made with the Democrats and Republicans to build the infrastructure and pass great environmental laws and we pass the most environmental laws. incredible things we become a kind of example for the rest of the world, and all this with those wonderful things and then there are also difficult moments, so I experienced both, but I would never change them for anything else.

The most challenging thing, but the most rewarding and enjoyable thing about doing it was that I have to tell you that I am very fortunate that in my life I was able to, of all things, be a bodybuilding champion and then a movie star and everything. this kind of thing, but they were able to serve almost 40 million people in California, it was incredible. Our visit to Hong Kong coincided with the debut of the Arnold Sports Festival in Asia, the sixth and final continent the event has reached since it began in 1989. The weekend featured 5,000 athletes in 28 different sports from nearly 50 countries and continues Schwarzenegger's mission to spread fitness and nutrition awareness around the world.

What impressed you most about the growth of Arnold Classics over the years. Well, you know you have a vision. and promote bodybuilding, but then the divide became bigger, like not only should I promote bodybuilding, I should promote fitness, I should promote health, but the work has to continue because those fitness festivals have to be done more and more. big and uh. You know, like I always say, too big is not big enough, this is really very exciting for me and for the Arnold Classic to be here in Hong Kong and finally to be here in Asia, what do you think of the first one in Hong Kong?

Alright, that's great, the idea is to go in and see the different sports and the different activities that they're doing because it makes them feel good if I walk by and look at them and then I get out of what they're doing and this is it. part of it is nice, oh man this is too easy and look at those arms and shoulders, look at the technique, come on, very nice a lot of times when they go to the old classics and they walk around and show them that I'm interested in what they're doing and Whatever the sport, whether it's boxing, jumping rope, pole dancing or whatever, let's see a pose, I mean, come and please me a little, yeah, look at this cute thing, can you believe how fast those guys are?

Look how agile man, I would love to be able to do just 10 of this. Wow, you can do it faster. Yeah, oh man, you go 30 miles an hour, you go up to 40 miles an hour. Amazing man, fantastic, gimme. five congratulations and I hope you sayI will return I will return very nice thank you very much thank you very much