Comedian spoke to Ticket before he appears at McCurdy's in Sarasota.

7 and 9:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday; McCurdy’s Comedy Theatre, 941-925-3869; mccurdyscomedy.com

Seeing #GoldenShowerGate trending Wednesday on Twitter probably isn't coming as a shock to Tom Arnold.

Arnold, who made national headlines when he claimed knowledge of “The Apprentice” outtakes in which President-elect Donald Trump said the n-word and c-word, told Ticket last week that Russian President Vladimir Putin might have damaging material on Trump.

On Tuesday, media outlets such as CNN, The New York Times and Buzzfeed reported Trump was briefed on unverified allegations that Russia has compromising information on him, including "sex videos involving prostitutes with Mr. Trump in a 2013 visit to a Moscow hotel," according to the Times report.

"There is a sex tape of him from Moscow in 2013 from when he was over there for the Miss Universe pageant," Arnold said Jan. 6. "I wish that he would release it because I don’t care. I wish he would say, ‘Putin has this over me, here’s what it is. OK, now it’s out, now he can’t talk about me, OK, I’m going to do what’s best for America.' Because something is up, something happened there. I want to help him so he can do what’s best for our country and the men and women who serve our country.”

Days before, Trump fought with his friend, “True Lies” co-star and new “Celebrity Apprentice” host Arnold Schwarzenegger on Twitter. This means both stars of “True Lies” are now linked to the President-elect.

It’s just the latest unlikely moment in the life of the former Iowa meatpacking plant worker, who went on to write, produce and act on one of the biggest sitcoms ever in “Roseanne” and the then-most expensive film made in “True Lies.”

Longer than any of that, he’s done stand-up, which is what brings him to McCurdy’s on Friday and Saturday.

Arnold said his current stand-up combines what’s new in his life — being a 57-year-old dad with a one and three-year-old — along with older stories of infamous moments from his life.

“People are nice enough to come to the shows, spend their time with me, they root for you,” Arnold said. “If they know at the end things turned out OK, you can go pretty dark talking about your many mistakes along the way.”

Arnold first performed onstage at the University of Iowa in 1982. He then dropped out of college and moved to Minneapolis for a stand-up job, which turned out to be a onetime weekend gig for $15.

He decided to stay there anyway, which is where he met Roseanne Barr. He started writing jokes for her and came out to Hollywood in 1988 to produce, write and act in her sitcom “Roseanne.” They married in 1990.

He also acted in his first blockbuster in the James Cameron-directed action film “True Lies.” While waiting for the film’s release in 1994, Arnold and Barr had a very public divorce and he left the sitcom.

“People were saying, ‘That guy will never work again, he has no talent, he rode her coattails, he’ll be back in Iowa in two weeks,’ and I was like, ‘Yeah, that’s probably true,’” Arnold said. “I thought I had six years of working on one of the best shows ever on television, I will have great stories for my grandkids and I worked with all these fantastic people. But James Cameron and Arnold Schwarzenegger were like, ‘Screw those people, ‘True Lies’ opens in three months — that will change everything.’”

They turned out to be right, and it helped kick off a second career for Arnold as a character actor who has now played more than 150 roles.

It also started a friendship with Schwarzenegger, which Arnold said seemed like the sort of crazy dream he would’ve had from a night of heavy drinking after work at the meat packing plant.

“Then you wake up at 4:45 a.m. and it’s time to go chisel heads or whatever crap job you have and you realize, ‘I live in Ottumwa, Iowa, I will never even meet Arnold Schwarzenegger, I should quit dreaming,’” Arnold said. “Then 10 years later, you’re at James Cameron’s house meeting Arnold Schwarzenegger, making a movie with him where you play his best friend.”

The ratings for the premiere of Schwarzenegger’s “Celebrity Apprentice” dropped 44 percent among 18-49-year-old viewers from the previous season’s, which still featured Trump as host. Some Trump detractors said they would boycott the show, which he keeps an executive-producer credit on.

Though Arnold has repeatedly criticized Trump, he hopes more people will watch Schwarzenegger’s version of “Celebrity Apprentice,” as he said his producing credit is contractually obligated and thinks higher ratings would bother Trump.

“I really think Arnold is who Trump likes to pretend to be,” Arnold said. “Arnold came here with five dollars, not five million dollars. Arnold has literally given hundreds of millions of dollars to charity, children’s charities. I’ve been there by his side to help him raise it. He is that American dream story.”

If the “Apprentice” outtakes do get released, Arnold was unsure what effect it would have, after Trump said he would grab women “by the p----" in leaked audio and still got elected president.

But it speaks to a larger problem of secrecy with Trump, Arnold said, whether it’s the alleged “The Apprentice” outtakes, his connections to Putin or his still-unreleased tax returns.

“I would support him straightening out everything,” Arnold said. “No matter what anybody has over him, I would support him straightening it out. I’d like him to do it before Jan. 20 so I can support my president.”