Arnold Schwarzenegger rips anti-maskers: ‘Screw your freedom’
Arnold Schwarzenegger says “Hasta la vista” to anti-maskers as COVID-19 regulations return amid the Delta variant.
The “Terminator” film icon and former governor of California spoke via YouTube Wednesday to urge “schmucks” to follow the rules and get vaccinated to “protect your fellow Americans.”
“There is a virus here — it kills people,” Schwarzenegger said, “and the only way we prevent it is get vaccinated, get masks, do social distancing, washing your hands all the time, and not just to think about ‘Well, my freedom is being kind of disturbed here.’ No, screw your freedom.”
The 74-year-old actor was part of a panel with CNN’s Alex Vindman and Bianna Golodryga to discuss misinformation and COVID-19 policy.
“Yeah, you have the freedom to wear no mask — but you know something?” Schwarzenegger continued. “You’re a schmuck for not wearing a mask. You are supposed to protect your fellow Americans around you.”
He also used his experience as a bodybuilder to make his case to trust modern medicine: “There’s no one that knows more about a bicep than I do because I studied this issue for 50 years and the same is also with the virus. The people out there, the experts, they study this year after year after year.”
He also demanded that Americans respect experts like Dr. Anthony Fauci and follow guidelines that he and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention implement.
“We put the traffic light at the intersection so someone doesn’t kill someone else by accident,” Schwarzenegger said. “You cannot say, ‘No one is going tell me that I’m going to stop here at this traffic light here, I’m going to go right through it.’ Yeah, then you kill someone else and then it is your doing.”
This is not the first time Schwarzenegger has jumped back into politics this year.
In January, he — speaking as a proud immigrant — addressed the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection on his YouTube channel and Twitter account, comparing modern-day Proud Boys to Nazis.
That same month, Schwarzenegger posted a video getting the COVID-19 vaccine to encourage his followers to get a dose of their own, and in July spoke on environmental issues at the Australian World Summit.