WASHINGTON ― Over one-third of Americans polled wish President Donald Trump and Arnold Schwarzenegger would switch roles, with Trump reclaiming his duties as host of NBC’s “Celebrity Apprentice” and the current host becoming, instead, President Schwarzenegger.
Trump has been highly critical of Schwarzenegger’s performance as host, chiding him for low ratings. Meanwhile, a majority of the nation has been highly critical of Trump’s performance as president.
A new HuffPost/YouGov survey finds that 35 percent of respondents want to have the two men switch roles. Meanwhile, 33 percent said the current arrangement is the right one and 31 percent said they weren’t sure.
If Trump did take the American people up on their suggestion, it could provide for an extraordinary television moment in which he would saunter onto the set of the fictional boardroom he once ruled as host of the reality TV program, point at the former governor of California and drop his catchphrase: “You’re fired.”
The public would presumably demand that Schwarzenegger make his own exit with an “Hasta la vista, baby.”
There is, of course, a constitutional problem with the scenario, beyond the hiccup that Schwarzenegger was not elected president. The Austrian-American actor is not a U.S.-born citizen, meaning he is ineligible to serve in the White House.
On the other hand, the constitution also bars presidents from receiving “emoluments” from representatives of foreign governments while in the White House. So as long as we’re overlooking other phrases in the document, perhaps Arnold can sneak through.
Just 13 percent of Republicans, compared to 63 percent of Democrats, want to see Arnold in the White House and Donald back in the NBC boardroom.
A closer look at the survey finds partisanship bleeding into new territory. Partisanship has become an extraordinary force in American politics, managing to shift, for instance, the opinions of members of both parties when it comes to Russia. Republicans now have warmer feelings about the longtime U.S. adversary, while Democrats, who enjoyed mocking GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney in 2012 for citing Russia as a geopolitical foe, named Russian President Vladimir Putin the world leader they disliked most in November.
The force of partisanship is even affecting views of “Celebrity Apprentice,” with 29 percent of Democrats saying they approve of the job Schwarzenegger is doing as host and only 16 percent of Republicans saying the same.
Schwarzenegger finished his run as California’s governor with a 23 percent approval rating. Gallup finds Trump’s presidential approval rating bouncing between the high 30s and low 40s.
The HuffPost/YouGov poll consisted of 1,000 completed interviews conducted Feb. 4-6 among U.S. adults, using a sample selected from YouGov’s opt-in online panel to match the demographics and other characteristics of the adult U.S. population.
The Huffington Post has teamed up with YouGov to conduct daily opinion polls. You can learn more about this project and take part in YouGov’s nationally representative opinion polling. Data from all HuffPost/YouGov polls can be found here. More details on the polls’ methodology are available here.
Most surveys report a margin of error that represents some, but not all, potential survey errors. YouGov’s reports include a model-based margin of error, which rests on a specific set of statistical assumptions about the selected sample, rather than the standard methodology for random probability sampling. If these assumptions are wrong, the model-based margin of error may also be inaccurate. Click here for a more detailed explanation of the model-based margin of error.