President Trump has called on people to “pray” for Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Celebrity Apprentice ratings, speaking at National Prayer Breakfast in Washington DC.
Schwarzenegger took over as Apprentice host from Trump, who previously starred in 14 seasons of the US show.
Speaking at the annual National Prayer Breakfast this morning (February 2), which is intended to be a forum for political, social and business discussions, Trump said that he was replaced on the show by a “big movie star” and “we know how that turned out”.
He continued: “The ratings went right down the tubes. It’s been a total disaster. And Mark [Barnett, Apprentice producer who was in the audience] will never ever bet against Trump again. And I want to just pray for Arnold if we can, for those ratings.” Watch in the clip below.
Trump at the National Prayer Breakfast says he wants to pray for Arnold Schwarzenegger’s “Apprentice” ratings pic.twitter.com/aNylJiy4UT
— BuzzFeed News (@BuzzFeedNews) February 2, 2017
Schwarzenegger has since responded in a video posted to Twitter, offering Trump the chance to “switch jobs” so people can “finally sleep comfortably again”.
The National Prayer Breakfast? pic.twitter.com/KYUqEZbJIE
— Arnold (@Schwarzenegger) February 2, 2017
Trump previously gave a damning verdict of Schwarzenegger’s Apprentice debut, writing on Twitter: “Wow, the ratings are in and Arnold Schwarzenegger got “swamped” (or destroyed) by comparison to the ratings machine, DJT.”
“So much for being a movie star — and that was season 1 compared to season 14. Now compare him to my season 1,” he added.
According to Nielsen’s preliminary ratings, the programme’s premiere ratings dropped more than 43% from the most recent premiere that Trump hosted in 2015.
“There’s nothing more important than the people’s work, Donald Trump,”Schwarzenegger responded on Twitter at the time. “I wish you the best of luck and I hope you’ll work for ALL of the American people as aggressively as you worked for your ratings.”
Schwarzenegger declined to vote for Trump in last year’s US elections. While he did not specify a reason for the decision, he said it was first time since 1983 that he would not be voting for a Republican presidential candidate.