Schwarzenegger Tape Excerpt: Home Life

April 3, 2006, the Office of the Governor of California. Arnold Schwarzenegger discusses Mexican immigrants with his chief speech writer, Gary Delsohn, equating them to a house guest who does not chip in with the chores.

SCHWARZENEGGER: Kids go and take out the trash, and the wife is doing the cooking, and Gary is there, he's going out shopping to get the food while she's doing the vegetables ready, he's getting the steaks. And so and so and doing this, and the grandmother is over there putting the flowers - everyone is doing something. I'd better get with the program. So if I'm smart now, if I'm the guest, I go to his wife and I say, "Hey, what can I do?"

UNKNOWN VOICE: That's true.

SCHWARZENEGGER: Because I'm not going to say, "Well, in my house, I sit there and I read all day, no matter what happens around me, I read." Well, when you are a guest you don’t want to go and sit in a chair while everyone is working and you keep reading your book because you love your novels. You go and get up in this one hour, at least you will then go and make an effort here, because I'm a guest here. Or, let me go out and get the flowers, to the wife, to the lady of the house. "I'm going to get some flowers for doing all of this," with a little message on it. So you do certain things. But what do we see in return? We see protesters carrying the Mexican flag.

UNKNOWN VOICE: Carrying the Mexican flag.

SCHWARZENEGGER: And stepping on the American flag, and speaking in Spanish and talking about, "We are here and we're going to stay." So now imagine, someone coming to your house and he has no place because his house burned down next door. Now, he comes to your house because of the misery he went through, or she went through, comes to your house now and you say, "Come on in here for a week or two weeks until you get going." And that person comes out and says, "I’m not going to move anymore. You know, something, Gary? I'm here to f---- stay."

UNKNOWN VOICE: Well, it's rude. Disrespectful and --

SCHWARZENEGGER: That's what I'm saying.

(Photo: AP / Courtesy of Stan Kann)