Donald Trump: Republicans must realise Arnold Schwarzenegger is right to compare US Capitol riot to Nazis' Kristallnacht attacks – Angus Robertson

Arnold Schwarzenegger has always been larger than life character.

Arnold Schwarzenegger compared the mob that stormed the US Capitol to the Nazis and called President Donald Trump a failed leader who "will go down in history as the worst president ever" (Picture: Frank Fastner/Arnold Schwarzenegger via AP)

After an extraordinary week in US politics, it has taken the ex-action movie star and former Republican governor of California to speak truth to power.

In an online video, he described Donald Trump as the “worst president ever” and compared the rioting by Trump supporters in the Capitol to the Nazi ‘Kristallnacht’ of 1930s Germany.

“Wednesday was the Day of Broken Glass right here in the United States,” he said.

“But the mob did not just shatter the windows of the Capitol. They shattered the ideas we took for granted… (and) trampled the very principles on which our country was founded.”

Schwarzenegger is one of the most senior Republicans to call out party colleague Donald Trump. “He sought a coup by misleading people with lies,” he said before damning the 45th president of the United States with “the good thing is he will soon be as irrelevant as an old tweet”.

The Austrian-US film-star warned about the lessons from the ruined country of his birth which lost its democracy and followed Adolf Hitler: “I was surrounded by broken men drinking away their guilt over their participation in the most evil regime in history.

"Not all of them were rabid antisemites or Nazis, many just went along, step by step down the road. They were the people next door.”

Hopefully more Republicans will join Arnold Schwarzenegger in standing up for democracy and the rule of law. If they don’t, they will be forever associated with seeking to overturn a democratic election and doing nothing to hold the insurrectionist-in-chief to account.

A message from the Editor:

Thank you for reading this article. We're more reliant on your support than ever as the shift in consumer habits brought about by coronavirus impacts our advertisers.

If you haven't already, please consider supporting our trusted, fact-checked journalism by taking out a digital subscription.