Jayme Deerwester

USA TODAY

To paraphrase first lady Michelle Obama, when the old Celebrity Apprentice boss goes low, the new one goes high.

After President-elect Donald Trump mocked successor Arnold Schwarzenegger for getting lower ratings than he did in his last season of the NBC reality competition, the former California governor issued a grown-up response: "There's nothing more important than the people's work."

As in, get back to it, please, Donald.

Schwarzenegger did get in a little dig, though, telling Trump, "I wish you the best of luck and I hope you'll work for ALL of the American people as aggressively as you worked for your ratings."

Although Schwarzenegger did not endorse Trump and encouraged fellow Republicans to vote for other candidates, he later told Today host Matt Lauer that it was time for the country to unite behind its new president.

But that soon-to-be president has a long memory when it comes to slights and it seems that not even being part of the same show buys him a pass.

"Wow, the ratings are in and Arnold Schwarzenegger got "swamped" (or destroyed) by comparison to the ratings machine, DJT. So much for him being a movie star-and that was season 1 compared to season 14. Now compare him to my season 1. But who cares, he supported Kasich & Hillary."

He is technically correct: Some 4.9 million turned in for the premiere of Schwarzenegger's New Celebrity Apprentice Monday, which put it third behind CBS sitcom Kevin Can Wait (7.3 million) and ABC's Bachelor season premiere (6.6 million). In the coveted 18-49 demo, The Bachelor pulverized Celebrity Apprentice by 62%.

But Trump's numbers for his own final season opener are not exactly brag-worthy. The seventh cycle of Celebrity Apprentice (and the 14th overall) opened to 6.3 million on Sunday, Jan. 4, 2015. The next night's episode (its first in its regular timeslot) was seen by 6.5 million. (The series peaked at 28 million in April 2004).

But this marks a rare time Trump appears to be willing to drag down his own franchise to take a potshot at a perceived political enemy.

Later, current Celebrity Apprentice contestant Boy George tweeted an invitation to anti-Trump viewers to end their boycott and stick it to the president-elect by supporting Schwarzenegger.

As much as we admire the Culture Club singer's hustle, as an executive producer, Trump still benefits from that plan, which everyone involved is savvy enough to realize. Based on his earnings from previous seasons, Forbes estimates he'll be paid around $7 million this cycle, despite not being involved. The magazine puts his executive-producer fee around $2 million with the remainder coming from royalties, fees and product tie-ins.

When Boy George's Twitter followers passed on following the show again, the singer said that even if he'd known in advance that Trump would remain an executive producver, he still would have signed on anyway due to the fact that all the contestants are raising money for charity.

"That is more important than anything and everything," he argued.

Now, if you were the cynical type, you might just think they were all colluding to juice the aging show's ratings.

It's also worth noting that the Apprentice tweets, which came a few hours before his intelligence briefing Friday, also helped divert media attention from the declassified report from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, which concluded that Russian president Vladimir Putin had "ordered an influence campaign in 2016 aimed at the U.S. presidential election."

Trump still questions intelligence on Russia hacking after briefing

Friday's news cycle follows a familiar pattern by Trump: Last month, Kanye West made a much-publicized appearance at Trump Tower the same day Rick Perry and Rex Tillerson were nominated for cabinet positions. And in November, the president-elect went after the cast of Hamilton just as he settled the Trump University lawsuit.