In an interview with CNN’s Alex Vindman and Bianna Golodryga, actor and former California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger called anti-maskers “schmucks.”
Arnie sat down with the two to discuss his frustration at the propagation of misinformation surrounding COVID-19 and the vaccine, and criticized people who haven’t been considerate of others throughout the pandemic. “A year and a half later, we are still in a mess and there are still people living in denial, there are still people that don’t believe in masks," he said.
Schwarzenegger stressed that Americans need to get vaccinated if we’re to see an end to the pandemic, which has refused to go anywhere amid the spread of the highly infectious Delta variant. Of particular concern to Arnold is how selfish many have acted over the last year and a half, and he shot down the absurd suggestion that wearing a small cloth face mask is somehow a horrific violation of personal freedom.
"I think people should know there is a virus here, it kills people,” the 74-year-old former governor said. “And the only way we prevent it is we get vaccinated, we wear masks, we do social distancing, washing your hands all of the time, and not just to think about, ‘Well, my freedom is being kind of disturbed here.’ No, screw your freedom, because with freedom comes obligations and responsibilities. You cannot just say, ‘I have the right to do X, Y, and Z,’ when you affect other people. That is when it gets serious.”
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Arnie compared people’s obligations and responsibilities during the pandemic to road safety and the way traffic lights are put in place to stop unnecessary deaths. “They put the traffic light in the intersection so someone doesn’t kill someone else by accident. You cannot say, ‘No one is going to tell me that I’m going to stop here, I’m going to go right through it,’” he said.
“We have to come together rather than fighting and always just saying, ‘According to my principles this is a free country and I have the freedom to wear no mask.’ Yeah, you have the freedom to wear no mask, but you know something? You’re a schmuck for not wearing a mask,” he added. The Austrian also remarked that he trusts the experts on COVID-19, specifically highlighting that Dr. Anthony Fauci has studied viruses “for his entire life—why would you not believe someone like that?”
While Schwarzenegger has mostly taken a step back from the world of politics over the past decade, he made a rare statement back in January after the attack on the United States Capitol on Jan. 6. He’s also fought back against COVID-19 misinformation in the past, and was one of the first notable celebrities to advocate for more Americans to get the vaccine.
