Actor and former Governor of California Arnold Schwarzenegger (File photo / NICHOLAS KAMM / AFP)
WASHINGTON D.C. – Former California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger appealed for unity Sunday after the violent attack on the US Capitol, which he described as an attempted coup by President Donald Trump, drawing comparisons to Nazi Germany.
In a video posted on Twitter that quickly went viral, the Hollywood star compared the attack by Trump supporters to Kristallnacht, or the “Night of Broken Glass,” when Nazis carried out pogroms in Germany in 1938 that included breaking the windows of Jewish-owned stores.
“Wednesday was the Day of Broken Glass right here in the United States,” said Schwarzenegger gravely, sitting at his desk between the US and California state flags.
Trump supporters clash with police and security forces as they push barricades to storm the US Capitol in Washington D.C on January 6, 2021. – Demonstrators breached security and entered the Capitol as Congress debated the 2020 presidential election Electoral Vote Certification. (Photo by ROBERTO SCHMIDT / AFP)
“The broken glass was in the windows of the United States Capitol.
“Growing up, I was surrounded by broken men, drinking away their guilt over their participation in the most evil regime in history,” continued Schwarzenegger, who was born in Austria in 1947.
“I have never shared this so publicly because it is a painful memory, but my father would come home drunk once or twice a week and he would scream and hit us and scare my mother.”
The actor, known for his roles in the “Terminator” franchise and “Conan the Barbarian,” did not explicitly say his father had been a Nazi, but said “my father and our neighbors were misled also with lies, and I know where such lies lead.”
“President Trump sought to overturn the results of an election and of a fair election. He sought a coup by misleading people with lies,” Schwarzenegger said.
“President Trump is a failed leader. He will go down in history as the worst president ever. The good thing is that he soon will be as irrelevant as an old tweet.
US President Donald Trump is seen on TV from a video message released on Twitter, seen in an empty Brady Briefing Room at the White House in Washington, DC on January 6, 2021. – Thousands of Trump supporters, fueled by his spurious claims of voter fraud, flooded the nation’s capital protesting the expected certification of Joe Biden’s White House victory by the US Congress. (Photo by MANDEL NGAN / AFP)
“No matter what your political affiliation is, I ask you to join me in saying to President-elect Biden, ‘President-elect Biden, we wish you great success as our President. If you succeed, our nation succeeds,'” Schwarzenegger concluded.
“And to those who think they can overturn the United States Constitution, know this: you will never win.”