Dan Snow's History Hit - Arnold Schwarzenegger on Churchill's Birthday

Episode Date: November 30, 2021

Actor and former Governor of California Arnold Schwarzenegger joins Dan in conversation on today's podcast about Winston Churchill, who was born on this day in 1874. They talk about Arnie's admiration for the former British Prime Minister as a leader and a thinker, how he modelled his own governorship on Churchill while in office from 2003-2011, and how he ended up in California in the first place. 

Some things just take too long. A meeting that could have been an email, someone explaining crypto, or switching mobile providers. Except with Fizz. Switching to Fizz is quick and easy. Mobile plans start at $17 a month. Certain conditions apply. Details at fizz.ca. Hi everyone, welcome to Dan Snow's History Hit. Got Arnold Schwarzenegger on the pod today, folks. Yeah, Arnie came on the pod. He's a big fan. He loves history. He loves Winston Churchill. Loves talking about Churchill, learning from Churchill. And so on Winston Churchill's birthday, the 30th of November, we thought we'd get the governor on. And I asked him where it all went wrong. How the hell he ended

up in California when he could have been a Brit? As well as that, we have a scintillating conversation about Winston Churchill, why Schwarzenegger admires him as a politician, as a leader, as a thinker, and how he tried to model his own governorship on Winston Churchill. Wonders never cease. Winston Churchill was born today, the 30th in 1874. He died in January 1965, when he was 90 years old. He lived a completely extraordinary life. He grew up in Blenheim Palace, surrounded by all the trappings of the British aristocracy at the height of Victorian empire. He served as a soldier, took part in battles like Andaman. He witnessed war as a journalist, as a politician. He found himself extraordinarily at many of the great turning points of the early to mid-20th

century, and his fingerprints are on so many of the great decisions made, decisions that still shape the world that we live in today. He won the Nobel Prize for his writing. As a historian, he shaped our impression of both the World Wars and much else besides. He was a prolific painter. His paintings are considered noteworthy, important, collectible by art dealers today, art collectors. And he's one of the longest serving politicians in British history. He was an MP of an almost unbroken stretch from 1990 to 1964, serving as MP for five constituencies. A remarkable man, a man whose career is now scrutinised rightly by historians, by everybody else. A man who's finding

that some of the history he wrote is now being rewritten. I think a man who would not be surprised at all by that process. Endlessly fascinating to talk about Churchill, and very interesting to do so with no other than Arnold Schwarzenegger. If you want to watch history as well as listen to it, we have a history channel. It's called History Hit TV. You go to historyhit.tv, and on there, you get hundreds of hours of documentaries for true history fans. No aliens, no nonsense, just proper history. And we've got thousands of podcasts as well. So please head over to historyhit.tv. Now, because it's still the Black Friday weekend, annoyingly, I have to give you this code.

Use the code BLACKFRIDAY and you get six months of History Hit TV for half price. It's such a bonkers deal. So many people are taking us up on this at the moment that I am going to die in penury. I'm not gonna have any money to spend on these programs. There's gonna be plenty of people to watch them. Anyway, go to historyhit.tv, use the code BLACKFRIDAY,

and you can take part in a revolution. We're transforming history online, on your phones, on your iPads, on your tablets, on your computers, and also on your smart TVs. You can watch it anywhere. This is the future, folks. It's the future of history. Please get involved. Historyhits.tv, use the code BLACKFRIDAY. But in the meantime, here is Arnold Schwarzenegger. Enjoy. It's great to be here. Great to smoke my Churchill cigar. It's great to have Winston. Great to smoke my Churchill cigar.

It's great to have Winston Churchill's bust right behind me over my shoulder. Well, it's good to have you too, Governor. And it's great to be here and to have one of my favorite books here, Boris Johnson. So I'm surrounded by Churchill stuff, even though I'm not a historian or anything like that. But I became a big fan of his. So I want to say thank you to Catherine, thank you to Alan and to Dan and to Randolph for having me there and for doing such a great job. I've been watching you the last hour.

It's really great and very stimulating and thought provoking all the stuff that you're talking about. So it's great to be part of this today. So thank you very much. Well, thank you very much for agreeing to do it. You grew up in the shadow of defeat in the Second World War. You grew up in Austria. When were you aware of Churchill? What did he mean to you and your community when you were a young man? Well, you don't have to rub in the defeat. I mean, we all know that. You kind of underlined underlined it but okay let me just tell you that I have fond memories of the Brits and I became a fan of England and the British people at the age of six seven eight because we had the British trucks and the British tanks riding by and driving by our house when I grew up

in town right outside of Graz, my hometown. And I think that had an effect also on me eventually when I got to the military in Austria to become a tank driver because I was so impacted by these huge trucks and by these huge vehicles and tanks and all that stuff. And the British soldier would just have us kids come climb up on the tanks and they will give us candies and cookies and stuff like that. And the funny thing about it was they always afterwards when I went home and told my mother about it I said you know this guys were just giving us cookies and candies and they're such nice men and my mother says it's the British. And she would just quit. Of course at that point I didn't know anything about politics so much about the war at all even though it was just post second world war and we were still occupied by the four

allied forces but it became very clear later on because I remember as I grew up and it was now the 60s and Churchill died and my mother said endlich is the adult this is schwein so I said to myself why is she so hostile why does she say finally he's dead that pig and all that kind of stuff so she was still kind of like from the second world war brainwashed and all of that and did not see this as kind of like the Allied forces and they're helping to rebuild again after Hitler and all that stuff. But the interesting thing about it was that I was really influenced by that. I became a big fan. So this is, of course, the next generation

now. And I went to England and I won the Mr. Universe contest in London with the age of 20. And I became a big fan of England as well. There were these great guys And I became a big fan of England. I said, oh, there were these great guys when I was a kid and soldiers that gave us food and all this stuff and candies.

And now, you know, I'm winning here my Mr. Universe contest in London. England is becoming kind of the springboard to my career. I won then the second Mr. Universe contest. And this was not at the age of 20 and 21. I became the youngest Mr. Universe ever. And also my idol was Reg Park who came originally from Leeds then grew up there worked his way up became Mr Britain and then Mr Universe so he was my idol

he was in the Hercules movie stories so everything was kind of related to Britain and then also this family the Bennett family in East London on 335 Romford Road. They always had me stay over at their house and they had a big gymnasium there where I worked out and they also organised the bodybuilding competitions. So everything kind of led always to the British and to England and all that stuff. So I'm a big

fan of you guys and what you've done for my career and the inspiration that you brought and all that stuff. So it was great to be connected with you guys in one way or the other. It's a real shame that you didn't stay here in the UK, because think what you could have achieved. You don't need to have a birthright citizenship to be

Prime Minister of this country. Unlike the US, you could have got the top job here. Well, now you're saying that being Prime Minister of England is bigger than being Governor of California. I don't know about that, because remember, when you look at today, who are the economic powers of the world, California is the fifth largest economy with a $3 trillion GDP.

So that means that only China, Japan, and Germany, and the United States itself is ahead of us. After that, we are in fifth rank. So we are ahead of England, actually, and France, and Italy, and all of those other countries. So this is how big impact that we make worldwide. And of course, that doesn't mean that you're any less or anything like this.

I'm just saying it has actually gone back and forth with the.. REID WELSH- Read the room, man. MARK BLYTHINGTON-..written many times, yes. REID WELSH- Read the room. We're all dying here. MARK BLYTHINGTON- And you know what is interesting about it? And I think I should mention that when Read the room, man. It's written many times, yes. Read the room. We're all dying here. You know what is interesting about it?

And I think I should mention that when we did our environmental policies, when I was governor of the state of California, I was always told that this is going to be terrible. I mean, going green means that you're going to lose jobs and the economy is going to go down and our revenue is going to decline and all this stuff. And the fact was, what I believe was that we can manage to protect the environment and the economy at the same time. And we were actually very successful in doing that, that now we have the strictest environmental laws in

California. And at the same time, we are the number one in the United States as an economy, the state of California. So if you think that you can actually predict both the economy and environment at the same time, which I think should be a lesson to the Glasgow Environmental Conference, COP26 this year, to let those nations know that they're always concerned and worried about going green will kind of wipe out the economy. It is not so you can do both. You can predict both the environment and the economy. So as a practitioner, most of us in this room, we read about Churchill, we study him. You've sat behind the big desk as a doer of politics, of leadership. What's it mean to think about people like Churchill in the past? Do you actually take things? What's that inspiration

mean doing that job? Without any doubt, he's one of the greatest leaders in history. And so I think that when you get into politics, like myself, I've been aware of Churchill and I've read some of the things of Churchill, but I was not an expert or fanatic about it. But then when I became governor, it was very clear that this was a new arena that I was stepping into. And that I should read up on some people that have been very successful leaders. And one of the things was, you know, Churchill and Abraham Lincoln and other people, Teddy Roosevelt, Ronald Reagan and so on. But I said to myself, you know, there's so much to be learned with Churchill. And then I found out that we have a lot of things in common.

I remember that first quote that they read was, never, never, never give up. I mean, I love that quote. And I said to myself, this is exactly what I did in bodybuilding. I never, ever gave up. I just kept going and going. No matter how many times people said, you can't do it, you won't be able to do it to be the world champion,

and you will never get to America and all this stuff. I said to myself, I would never, ever give up. And the same was in the political arena. I said to myself, I would never, ever give up. And the same was in the political arena. I never gave up. The same was in acting. And they said you would never be able to go and become an international star because you have an accent and, you know, you have this overdeveloped body and all this.

And so I never listened to that. I just believed in what Churchill said, never, never, never give up. And also when you're down, you know, when he says, if you're going through hell, keep on going. This is the kind of quote that makes it so inspirational. Then when he talks also, when you look at his resiliency, this is very inspirational. You know, if you think about how resilient he was,

I mean, he was down and he was up and he was down and he was up. That's what happens in life. That's what happens in politics. It's what happens in the movie career. That's what happens in sports. You know happens in politics it's what happens in the movie career that's what happens in sports you know sometimes you win sometimes you lose sometimes the people are behind you sometimes they're against you and all this stuff and I experienced that when I was a governor I mean it was like I won as an outsider to become governor of the state of California but then you know a year and a half later we had a special election for some of the

propositions that they wanted to introduce and we lost we lost all of the propositions and then my poll numbers were down again so of course then I went back to the church to book I read about how did he deal with those downs and it was very inspirational to read those things because the year later when we had the re-election again for my campaign and to get re-elected, I won again with 57% of the vote. So I went through this rollercoaster ride. And then again, when we had the recession, then my poll numbers went down again, then they went up again. And so I think there's so much to be learned. And this is why I always say, you know, we can learn from history, especially from very historic and great people like Churchill. And I think it was very helpful to me going through my political career

and going through the ups and downs. And he had great, great advice for those kinds of things. And also, you know, when you realize that democracy is one of those interesting things, that you find the shortcomings of democracy when you sit there as a leader. But I think that there was no one that put it better than he did

when he just said, you know, that democracy is the worst system, but it is still better than all the others. And I think that he's absolutely right with that. There is no better system. No one has come up with a better system, but it has its downsides and has its failures and stuff like that. And we can see this right now in America and we can see it, I think, in other places around the world. this right now in America and we can see it I think in other places around the world. I'm interested, Governor, in the fact that Churchill achieved many of his greatest moments in coalition governments here in the UK, working with politicians from across the spectrum. And

a lot of your most recent work, you seem to be in that field, you seem to be talking about bipartisanship in a country that's infamous at the moment for its partisan divides. it's infamous at the moment for its partisan divines? Well, I think the evil about politics is that they only think political, and they only do what their party describes, and what the platform is. And so there are so many issues, like, for instance, let's take the environmental issue. issues. Like, for instance, let's take the environmental issue. I mean, there is really no democratic ear and there is no republican ear. I mean, we all breathe the same air. So we all have to fight to get rid of pollution because pollution kills 7 million people a year. So how can you make this a political issue? But the politicians and the parties will make it into a political issue. Luckily, you don't do that in England because I've seen conservative governments endorse environmental changes and protecting the environment.

I've seen liberal governments do the same thing. So you don't have this problem. But we in America have a real problem there in this area with everything being a political thing. How can you kind of argue and say it's a democratic issue? It's an issue by the democratic party education well education is something for everybody every child needs good education what i'm fighting for it doesn't matter if you're a republican or democrat i'm fighting for equal education that a black child has the same opportunities than a white child and there's a mexican child and a

latino child has the same opportunities an as Asian child, that everyone, no matter what your income is, should have the same opportunities to have great education. And so to me, this is not a Democratic issue or a Republican issue or a conservative issue or a liberal issue. I said, you know, this is an important issue to all of us. So this goes on and on and on. It's health care. It's the same thing. The question is just to me, how do we insure everybody in California

when I was governor? And then all of a sudden, the Republicans said, oh, you're hanging out with Teddy Kennedy too much. So I said, what does this have to do with Teddy Kennedy? They said, well, he's a healthcare fanatic about universal healthcare. I said, me too.

I come from Austria. Everyone was insured in Austria. Why? California is this very powerful state and we have so much money here and we have the wealthiest people here. Why shouldn't we have everyone insured? So to me, those are common sense things.

So I didn't have a coalition. I just had to find the art of working with the other side, the art of bringing Democrats in and started working with the Democrats. So this is why when I became governor of the state of California, I just looked at the list of things that the Democrats were interested in and then the things that the Republicans were interested in. And you can let her do something with America

and not just stand around. So anyway, we just were kind of like looking at the list of things. And then I said, okay, the Republicans want to go and get infrastructure. I want to get infrastructure. And the Democrats want to get infrastructure. So we started negotiating about infrastructure.

And then we started talking about education. Then we started talking about after-school programs. And we went through the list of things that we can do together. And then we started attacking the things that maybe we disagreed about. And so this is exactly what we did. So some people, like in Austria and in Germany and in other places, they have coalition governments. We only have two parties. So therefore, I had to kind of reach across the aisle and work with the other side. And it was very well done because the bottom line is

that I don't see the other side as villains. It doesn't matter to me if it is a communist, if it's a socialist, if it is a conservative or whatever it is I want to work with everyone together so you get the work done that is good for the people that is the bottom line to me it is more important to be not a party servant but to be a public servant I always wanted to be a public servant and this is what I also goes back to Churchill because Churchill was not an ideologue I mean you know he could see that sometimes the conservative party wanted to be a public servant. And this is what I also goes back to Churchill, because Churchill was not an ideologue. I mean, you know, he could see that sometimes the Conservative Party left him and then he turned, was liberal, and then he felt that they left him. They became a Conservative.

He went back and forth like that because all he was interested in is in fulfilling their chant and moving forward and making life better for the people of Great Britain. Now, a lot of people are asking me, obviously you need a lot of prosthetics because you're in a lot better shape, but would you ever fancy playing Winston Churchill in a movie? I think that has been done before, and I don't think that I could manage the British accent, to be honest with you. And I don't also think that I would be able to bulk up my six-pack

as much as Winston Churchill did. You think prosthetics, of course. Since I've got you, I've got to ask about historical roles. What are some of the favorite roles you've played, or what character would you love to play from the past, would you like to bring to the big screen? I specialize in kind of fantasy characters. It is Terminator or Cumberland the Barbarian and stuff like that.

But those are the characters I was always very good in playing and we're doing another movie now, a sequel to Twins with Danny DeVito, where we find our third brother. And all of that. So this is the kind of things that I do, but I don't play that much historical characters. You listen to Dan Snow's history and we're talking to Arnold Schwarzenegger

about Churchill. Crazy. More coming up. Some things just take too long. A meeting that could have been an email, someone explaining crypto, or switching mobile providers. Except with Fizz.

Switching to Fizz is quick and easy. Mobile plans start at $17 a month. Certain conditions apply. Details with Fizz. Switching to Fizz is quick and easy. Mobile plans start at $17 a month. Certain conditions apply. Details at Fizz.ca. I'm Matt Lewis. And I'm Dr. Eleanor Janaga. And in Gone Medieval, we get into the greatest mysteries. The gobsmacking details and latest groundbreaking research.

From the greatest millennium in human history. We're talking Vikings. Normans. Kings and Popes. Who were rarely the best of friends. Murder, rebellions, and crusades. Find out who we really were by subscribing to Gone Medieval from History Hit, wherever you get your podcasts. We've got obviously lots of people keen to ask questions here, Gareth, that's all right. You are okay to take a few questions?

Absolutely. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Churchill, as well as being a conservative, was very much a progressive as well and spent time as a liberal. How do you think if Churchill was to enter the American political scene today he would be received? I think very well because I mean remember one thing that what we are lacking is having balls. And I think that he was known for that. I remember when I asked Dino De Laurentiis, one of the most famous producers in the world in the history of movies, he made over 500 movies and I did Conan the Barbarian with him,

and Conan the Destroyer, and Raw Deal, and other movies like that. So he became kind of a mentor of mine. I said to him, I said, Dino, how could you be so successful? And he said to me, he says, Schwarzenegger. You know, he was Italian.

He said, Schwarzenegger. In Italy, we have the three Cs. I said, what are the three Cs? And he said, it's Cavallo, Cuore, and Guglione. And he grabbed his balls. So I said to myself, he's absolutely correct. That's what it takes to be successful. And this is exactly what Churchill had.

He had a great, great brain power. He had great intelligence. He was very, very smart. He had an extraordinary heart, but he also had balls. He had balls to make the right decisions, even though people were hating him sometimes for that. But he knew it was the right thing to do, especially before the Second World War, when others were feeling like they should make peace with Hitler and kind of like, you know, kind of almost surrender to him and to work with him. He knew that you can't work with that guy. That guy was just a maniac and he was not to be worked with and it will only be war. That's the outcome. And he was absolutely right. So, I mean, that took balls to do that. And this is exactly what we're missing

today in politics. A lot of times people don't have the courage anymore to do those kind of things that needs to be done. They are rather just listening to the labor unions and who is paying for their campaigns. Like, for instance, for a politician, they don't have the courage to go and say, we're going to go and stop fossil fuels within the next 20 years. Or we're going to go and stop, you know,

the regular big engine cars that are fueled by fossil fuels. We're going to create the hydrogen-fueled engine. We're going to create the electric engines and recreate technology where the cars will be even more powerful, where we can power the cars, where we can power the cargo ships. Let's not forget the 15 biggest cargo ships in the world polluting more than all of the cars together. So we can go and make those changes. But they don't have the balls to do it, because they want to kiss up to the fossil fuel industry. I mean, remember that Donald Trump tried to bring back coal. I mean, it's like bringing back Blockbuster or fax machines

or something like that. It's like it's crazy to do those kind of things. So, I mean, politicians need to have the guts to do that. I remember that when I was governor, there was many times the question, you know, should I just go along with the federal government or not? Because the federal government said that, you know, Arnold, you cannot control greenhouse gases in California because they're another pollutant. So I took the federal government to court. The federal government was also Republican. I took them to court. We went all

the way to the Supreme Court, where the Supreme Court finally said, yes, we're conservative judges. Yes, greenhouse gases are pollutant, and therefore we can regulate our own air. Well, how much brain power does it take to figure out that the exhaust that comes out of the exhaust pipes from cars

is a pollutant? But I mean, there were people that fought that. And so, you know, I had the courage to do those kind of things. I had 15 of the biggest car manufacturers sit in my office and say, we're going to sue you. We're going to sue California. We're going to sue everybody because you're not going to tell us that we should lower our emissions. And I said, go ahead and sue me. I didn't back away. They promised me they're going to spend millions of dollars against me. They're going to do everything that they can to derail my campaign and I would never get re-elected. And I found all

of those threats. Other politicians would start shaking about it and I just laughed about it. And I won. Because now our standards, our tailpipe emission standards that we created in California became nationwide under the Obama administration

and now our standards are nationwide. So this is the kind of thing. But it takes guts to do that because you have to fight your own party. You have to fight sometimes the opposite party. You have to fight everybody. And you're standing there by yourself alone. And you say, am I doing the right thing? But I was convinced I was doing the right thing because I wanted to make sure that we

cut down that number of people that are dying every year because of cancer and because of pollution. I mean, this is like inexcusable. We can do better than that, but it takes guts to do those kind of things. Governor, thank you. The question is, the theme of the conference is Churchill in freedom. Can you tell us what freedom meant to you growing up in war-torn Austria, the product of extremism from the Nazis? Well, I mean, I had all the freedom in the world when I grew up, because it was the post-war. I was born in 1947. But we definitely, I was suffering when I grew up of the after effect of the war, because, you know, as you already said so eloquently, we lost the war. And because we lost the war, there was a bunch of losers around.

They couldn't get their chest, this whole thing of losing. And they were drunk a lot. There was a lot of alcoholism going on. There was a lot of post-stress syndromes that people didn't acknowledge then. That when you come back from a war war what it does to your mind and your brain and your psyche and all that stuff and so there was alcoholism there was violence around it we were hit all the time when we were at home and my friends the neighbor kids they were hit all the time so it was this kind of crazy kind of thing where you just said I can't wait to get

out of here and that I think gave me the inspiration to really kind of look for a way out. What can I do to get out of Austria and to get out of this kind of misery, what I interpreted as misery? So I think that I wanted to be free from all of that. And when I was 10 years old, I watched the documentary that we had in school about America. And I saw the high rises, and I saw the huge bridges, the Golden Gate Bridge, and I saw the high-rises, and I saw the huge bridges, the Gordon Gate Bridge, and I saw the six-lane highways, and the Cadillacs, and all those fancy cars driving around, and Muscle Beach, and Hollywood.

I said to myself, this is where I want to be. And I think this is what gave me the inspiration, and it also gave me the motivation to grow up poor and to grow up under these kind of somewhat miserable conditions. It gave me the inspiration and the will to grow up poor and to grow up under this kind of somewhat miserable conditions. It gave me the inspiration and the will to succeed. And I think that because of that, I'm sitting here today because I think that without that upbringing and without America giving me all the opportunities in the world and without, like I said, having the British help me launch my career in London with the Mr. Universe

contest all this kind of combinations together made me be who I am today so I think finally I'm in a place that is free but I mean at the same time as I as we hail the idea of freedom we also have to connect it always with our obligations because with freedom comes also duties and obligations. We cannot just look for, I want to be free, and freedom is great and all that stuff, but we also have to think about what obligations do we have as a society to work together. It's no different than a sports team. You have the more a team, a basketball team or a football team or a soccer team works together, the less they think about the individuality during the game, but more as a group together, the more successful they are.

And the same is also in politics. We have to go and work together. That's how we're going to be successful. If it is with the COVID situation, if it is with education situation, if it is environmental issues or whatever it is, or kind of like reaching out and helping the underdog, the more we work it is environmental issues, or whatever it is, or kind of like reaching out and helping the underdog, the more we work together on those issues, the better it is for everybody,

rather than just to think about ourselves, and I'm free and my freedom is the most important thing. So this is all great, but we have to also have a certain kind of responsibilities that we have to connect with that. You've been friendly for many years with Rabbi Marvin Heyer from the Simon Wiesenthal Center, who is himself a great Churchillian. I know you've talked about dialogues you've had with him about understanding history, especially Germany and Austria in the 1930s and 40s, and your own

explorations of that. Can you talk a little bit about that experience and what that's taught you? Well, I felt after having come to America and learning more here about the Second World War and learning more about the history, which we were not taught in Austrian schools the best way, I realized that I, as the next generation, have to do everything I can to not let that happen again. So I took this very seriously and I tried to figure out how can I help. And through some coincidence, Rabbi Haier reached out to me and says,

could you help us here in Hollywood with getting Hollywood celebrities involved in fundraising activities for the Simon Wiesendahl Center? Some things just take too long. A meeting that could have been an email, someone explaining crypto, and Wiesendahl Center. Lewis. And I'm Dr. Eleanor Janaga. And in Gone Medieval, we get into the greatest mysteries, the gobsmacking details and latest groundbreaking research from the greatest millennium in human history. We're talking Vikings, Normans, kings and popes who were rarely the best of friends, murder, rebellions and crusades. Find out who we really were by subscribing to Gone Medieval from History Hit, wherever you get your podcasts.

And I said to him, I said, look, I will do everything that I can to help you. I said, because to me, this is a way of kind of giving back and doing something that is very important to our generation. So those things never happen again. We got to go and talk more all over the world about inclusion, about fighting prejudice. I mean, there is a prejudice core, I think, in all of us. But we have a brain and we can fight that. We're not animals. We have a brain and we can fight that. And so this is why it is important to make people aware of that. So I wanted to support the Simon Wiesenthal Center and I brought in great producers and studio executives and actors and so on and they started really raising a lot of money. They were able then to build this huge center in Beverly Hills, the Simon Wiesenthal Center. I was a big fan of Simon Wiesenthal and his work.

I met with him many times and they celebrated even his 80th birthday here in Los Angeles. And he was a wonderful man. And so I've been a big supporter of that. And I think we have to do that. We all have to continuously work on getting rid of our prejudice and being inclusive and always asking ourselves,

are we really working hard to make everyone have the same kind of chances, the same kind of opportunities and so on? And if not, then we have to go and work towards that to get that happening. Because to me, there's no reason that anyone should suffer because they don't make enough money or they don't have enough food. Or like, for instance, in Los Angeles, the homeless. I mean, we have 68,000 homeless in Los Angeles. This is a total failure by the politicians, not by those homeless people. Those homeless people, there's a lot of them working.

There's working homeless, but they can't afford anymore that $3,500 single unit apartment. There's a one bedroom and it's $3,500. So this is crazy. And who created this $3,500 apartment was the politicians because they had this no growth philosophy and attitude in the 80s and 90s where they didn't let apartments buildings being built and they made it almost impossible to get permits and so on. So now we are literally 500 to a million, 500,000 to a million apartments short here in Los Angeles.

And this is why it drives up the prices. And this is why now a lot of people cannot afford anymore to live here. That's why we have so many of the homeless. So this is created by politicians, not created by the private sector, but the homeless people, by the politicians. They've failed over and over.

And so now we have to figure out together. It doesn't matter now if they failed or not. We know that. But now we have to figure out, Democrats and Republicans alike, they have to figure out how do we get these people homes as quickly as possible? How do we get them jobs that don't have jobs? And how do we get them mental care and to get them medical care and all of those kind of things?

That is the bottom line. But all of this needs for us to work together and to be inclusive. That's, I think, what the Simon Wiesenthal Center is preaching, is being inclusive and to make everyone equal and to be more open-minded about all this stuff. Governor Schwarzenegger, thank you for being here. I actually cast my first ballot when I was 18 for you in 2003. I'm a California export here. Winston Churchill

effectively made the world we live in more safe because he invested in the future between framing the Cold War and potentially even a little bit of the European Union. You've helped the University of Southern California with the Schwarzenegger Institute. Can you speak to that and the importance of the next generation's understanding of how important policy is so that we can all live together in a global world a lot better? The Schwarzenegger Institute was created because USC, the university itself, was interested in having me join them. But at the same time, I was so interested in creating an institute because I didn't want to just stop from one day to the next of this work that we have done when I was

governor. So, you know, after a certain amount of years, we have term limits here. So after the term limits are over, you know, then you have to get out. But I was still so excited and enthusiastic about environmental issues, about healthcare issues, about health care issues, about education issues, and about creating infrastructure and all of those kind of things. And our problems that we have with the drought here, our problems we have with earthquakes here, our problems we have with the violence here, homelessness and all this stuff, and good politics,

good government practices. And so all of these kind of issues were still in me. So I said, I want to create the institute and I want to have these kind of discussions. So we get together, just like you do. We get together, and then we talk about those issues, and we have the best minds come together. And of course, the institute is bipartisan. We don't look at things in the political way. We just want to solve the problems and help the world to solve the problems. So there's a wonderful event that we have in symposiums and lectures and stuff like that.

The whole idea is to turn on our young students that are at USC and to let them not just learn from the books, because the book knowledge is very good, but then when you can combine that

with actual real-life action and experiences, then it is much better. Then it really sticks. And so this is why we have interesting kind of guest lecturers and really smart people coming in and have always a few hundred seats available in this lecture for the students. So the students can sit down in the front row.

They can ask questions to those leaders. They can learn from those leaders and really learn about how to craft policy and how they can make a difference. Because so many times people feel like they cannot make a difference. Just the other day my daughter was calling me, just to give you an example, and she was saying, she says, today I got a call from the city hall and they said to me that my request to fix the holes in the asphalt there on a road behind the Brentwood Mart now finally has been paved. Well, she said,

I've been bothering them for two months. I've been saying there's holes there and people just wipe out and they ruined their suspensions in the cars and people are dripping there and all this stuff. I think they should fix it. Well, it just shows you

most people drive over those holes and they just say, oh, there's government people, they never do anything. The city is falling apart. Look at all this. They never do anything. They don't keep their promises. But my daughter just said, okay, let me pick up the phone and let me go on the internet and let me bombard them and just keep pushing and pushing. And she got it done. This whole road now is fixed and it is wonderfully paved and all this stuff. So it is kind of like we all have the power to create change. We all can be architects of change.

All we have to do is just, and this is what I teach our students always, is think not only about me, but think also about we. We, we, we. That is the important thing, to be able to switch back and forth there is something in there for me but also i have to fight for other people for the causes that are bigger than me and i think this is the attractive thing when you are in politics and when you get into a position like governorship or prime minister whatever president it's wonderful because it makes you switch from thinking just about yourself to thinking about everyone else.

And I think that to me, I had this on my bodybuilding days when I was really interested in not only lifting for myself, but lifting the whole sport of bodybuilding and making everyone get into fitness, making everyone get into weight training, cross training and jogging and boxing and wrestling and skiing and just do something every day. And I wanted to promote that. And I wanted to be an inspiration to the rest of the world, just like Reg Park, the guy from Leeds was that became Mr. Universe, was my inspiration. So I wanted to be that inspiration to millions of people around the world.

And now I want to be an inspiration to these young kids that are going to school when it comes to public policy. Do not think in a political way, but to think about just how do we fix things? How do we get things done and how do we make the life better in this country? This is what it's all about. And this is what I'm teaching over there. I teach classes about the environment and about redistricting reform, how to make government operate better. and about redistricting reform, how to make government operate better,

how we draw the district lines in a fair way and not let the politicians draw it, not let ordinary people draw it. And all of this, again, often thinks that sometimes people don't even understand what it is, but I understand what it is and I know the way the political system is fixed and I want to get rid of that and really create a fair political system here in America. Thank you. Governor, your theme in politics is cooperation to find solutions. How do you deal with people who are extreme, full of hatred, the type of guys who storm Capitol Hill? Well, I did a speech about that where I talked about there were times where we went in the

wrong direction here in America and where people were lied to and people have reacted in kind of strange ways to storm the Capitol. I'm the first one that says that our government in Washington sucks. I'm the first one to say that politicians, it doesn't matter if it's Democrats and Republicans, are not really performing up to par. I'm the first one to say that this government has been lying to us and has been promising us things

like immigration reform or building infrastructure in this country or creating true universal health care or equality in education equality in voting rights and all that stuff and they haven't delivered and this is pitiful because this i'm like i'm saying this is like republicans and democrats alike so there is a reason for people to be angry there's a reason for people to protest but i think that we still have to do it in the legal way i have nothing against it when 5 million people turn up in Washington, D.C. and protest and have their flags and have their signs where they communicate with the signs and have press conferences there and all this stuff and just block the Capitol.

But don't storm the Capitol. That is not cool. That is not right. So protesting, yes. Letting your anger be expressed, yes. Letting them know the politicians they're not performing, yes. And also remembering when the next election is, that is the time where you can really express your anger and vote them out of office. Because the sad story is that sometimes has an approval rating of 25%, but then 95% of the politicians get re-elected. So it just shows you how fixed the system is and that we have to change that. And so this is why I myself am frustrated.

I myself am frustrated. Doesn't matter if it's a Democratic administration or Republican administration. But I think it is important for people to know that we have to still do those protests within the law. That is the key thing. And what I always feel is the more we talk about being together, reaching out to each other, trying to listen to each other.

Remember what Winston Churchill said, that courage is what it takes to stand up and to speak. But he said it also takes the same courage to sit down and to listen. And I think this is exactly what is important, what these politicians have to learn to do. They have to listen. They have to listen to the people and be sensitive enough to see that they can't get anything done. And it is irresponsible what they do. And so we people have to make an effort to come together and not to hate each other because he believes that the conservative way is the right way and i may believe the center way is the right way and someone else believes that the left is the right

way we can all sit down together and we can talk about it okay we believe that way but now how do we get things done the do we get things done? The way we get things done is by not everyone expecting a straight 10, from zero to 10 to 10. But you have to expect that when you start negotiating and start compromising, that maybe everyone walks away with a seven.

That's what we did when we did our infrastructure negotiations. And because of that, instead of my $100 billion infrastructure deal that I wanted, I got a $60 billion infrastructure deal. So we made deals, but we were able then to rebuild our roads, our highways, our bridges, our on-ramps, our off-ramps, our schools, university buildings, our levees, and our prisons, and all of this kind of stuff. So this was done by negotiating and by compromising. I didn't get everything, they didn't get everything, but we got it done. That is the

important thing that we need to do. Thank you so much, Governor. I just got one, we're going to wrap up very shortly, but just one more thing from me. You've mentioned, you've dangled your love of the UK here and you've suggested perhaps one day you might return. If only there was some well-known catchphrase you're associated with about returning in some way. Well, first of all, remember there's several catchphrases. One of them is, get to the chopper! The other one is is crush your enemies see them driven before you

and hear the lamentation of their women and that is from Conan the Barbarian that was my line in Conan the Barbarian and then of course the most famous one is from Terminator I'll be back yay

let's hope so. I feel we have the history on our shoulders. All this tradition of ours, our school history, our songs, this part of the history of our country, all were gone and finished. Thank you for making this episode Dan Snow's History.

I really appreciate listening to this podcast. I love doing these podcasts. It's a highlight of my career. It's the best thing I've ever done. And your support, your listening is obviously crucial for that project. If you did feel like doing me a favor, if you go to wherever you get your podcasts and give it a review, give it a rating, obviously a good one, ideally,

then that would be fantastic. And feel free to share it. We obviously depend on listeners, depend on more and more people finding out about it, depend on good reviews to keep the listeners coming in. Really appreciate it. Thank you. Some things just take too long. A meeting that could have been an email, someone explaining crypto, or switching mobile providers. Except with Fizz. Switching to Fizz is quick and easy. Mobile plans start at $17 a month. Certain conditions apply.

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