Arnold Schwarzenegger says he'd 'so clearly' be elected president if he could run: 'It's a no-brainer'

• If he was eligible, Arnold Schwarzenegger says he'd "so clearly" win the 2024 presidential election.

• The action star turned politician can't run because he wasn't born in the US.

• Schwarzenegger told CNN's Chris Wallace his win would be a "no brainer" if he could stand.

Arnold Schwarzenegger thinks he'd be a sure bet for president – if only he was eligible to run in next year's election.

The bodybuilder turned film star turned politician told CNN's Chris Wallace he could see himself being the kind of presidential candidate who "can bring people together."

Schwarzenegger, 75, served as the governor of California from 2003 to 2011.

Unfortunately for Schwarzenegger's political aspirations, the US constitution dictates that presidential candidates must have been born in America. The "Terminator" star was born and raised in Thal, Austria, near Graz.

But if circumstances were different, Schwarzenegger told Wallace he'd be confident about winning.

"Absolutely," Schwarzenegger said when Wallace asked if he would run next year. "Put me in because it's, look — it's a no-brainer. I see so clearly how I could win that that election."

"It's like me and California, when I was running for governor," he added. "It was clear that people are looking for some new answer, not a right-wing or left-wing, but someone that can bring the nation together and doesn't see the other party as the enemy.

"There's just so many things that need to be done. And can be done," Schwarzenegger added. "What makes it so wonderful is because it's doable. It's all doable, or at least it's just people coming together and say yes, we can do it."

Schwarzenegger said that he believed the presidential field was "open in 2016" – and the same was also true now.

"Who is there that is really a person that can bring everyone together," he said. "Who is there today that people say okay, he's not too old or he's not too this or too that, or is that because it's now a question about who do you vote against rather than who do you vote for?"

Schwarzenegger is a Republican but has been openly critical of his party in recent years, especially in regard to former president Donald Trump.

Following the January 2021 Capitol riots, he released a seven-minute video condemning members of the Republican party as "spineless" and compared the insurrection to the Nazis' rise in Germany.

He defended his comments again during his CNN interview. "That is of course a different time and all that but it is kind of like a threat to democracy and a threat of what happens to people when they're lied to, and this is why I compared it," Schwarzenegger said. "I think a lot of people in America today are being misled."

Read the original article on Insider