Kiss‘ Gene Simmons has said that he wasn’t surprised when Donald Trump was elected as the 45th President of the US – and he thinks the moment has “forever changed” politics. You can watch a video of the moment below.
Simmons appeared on Trump’s Celebrity Apprentice in 2008 and made the comments on Good Morning Britain yesterday (July 9). He also compared the president’s rise in politics with that of Arnold Schwarzenegger, saying it takes “a certain personality” to rise to such a position.
Simmons said: “Quite honestly, I didn’t think of the presidency, but it takes a certain personality, certain DNA to go anywhere and do anything.
“If you really think about it, Arnold Schwarzenegger, who’s from Austria, the fact that he became — with a difficult-sounding name — the biggest bodybuilder, the biggest star on earth in movies…and then the governor of California, the fifth largest economy on planet Earth — ahead of the U.K. Could have been president, except that he wasn’t born in America.
“Politics has forever changed. Whether you like it or not, this president has changed it,” Simmons added. You can see the video below.
Simmons added: “I understand this thing,” Simmons said of Trump’s public spats. “It’s a New York streetfighter. If you say, ‘What are you looking at? You’re looking at me?’ Politics are over. Now this guy is just saying, ‘I don’t care what my guys are saying. Did you just say something bad about me? I’m coming after you.'”
Simmons also offered his opinion on the state of the world in 2019 and said: “Look, as a history buff and as a former sixth-grade teacher in Spanish Harlem, it’s never been better. Don’t kid yourself. My mother was a concentration camp survivor in World War II. She was 14 years of age. She, unfortunately, just passed on during Christmas.
“Earth has never been in better shape…I know — climate change and a polarised political thing — but there are no more world wars. I mean, imagine what London looked like 60 years ago. This is the best of times. Unemployment in the United States is the lowest it’s been in 50 years — 5-0…More people are working. More people are making more money. Unions are more powerful.”
Back in 2016, Simmons reportedly “politely declined” the chance to play at Trump’s inauguration.
A TMZ reporter asked Simmons at the time: “Gene, you’re the rock-n-roll Donald Trump, will you play at the inauguration?” when Shannon Tweed, his wife, and their daughter Sophie, “screamed out ‘No!’ quickly and repeatedly.”
In the video, Tweed then grabs Simmons’ cheeks, and made him mouth “No.” He then said: “he’s our president” and “people need to get over it.”’