Arnold Schwarzenegger, the former Republican governor of California, condemned President Donald Trump as a failed leader in a video message posted to social media on January 10, 2021, four days after the storming of the U.S. Capitol.
In the seven-and-a-half-minute video, Schwarzenegger said Trump had “sought a coup by misleading people with lies” after losing a fair election. Drawing on his own childhood in Austria, he compared the riot to Kristallnacht, the 1938 N*zi attacks on Jewish homes and businesses, saying, “I grew up in Austria. I’m very aware of Kristallnacht, or the Night of Broken Glass.” He added that his father and neighbors had also been “misled also with lies,” and said he knew “where such lies lead.”
Turning to Trump directly, Schwarzenegger said: “President Trump is a failed leader. He will go down in history as the worst president ever. The good thing is he will soon be as irrelevant as an old tweet.”
The actor, who served two terms as California’s governor after winning a 2003 special recall election, closed the video by brandishing the sword he carried in his 1982 film Conan the Barbarian, likening American democracy to its steel. “The more it is tempered, the stronger it becomes,” he said, warning those who sought to overturn the Constitution that “you will never win.” He went on to voice his support for President-elect Joe Biden, telling him, “we stand with you today, tomorrow and forever in defense of our democracy from those who would threaten it.”
The video, posted days before Trump left office, circulated widely at the time and has continued to resurface online in the years since as commentary on his presidency.
