Arnold Schwarzenegger is taking a stand. On Sunday, Schwarzenegger, 73, uploaded a video den-ouncing President Donald Trump and the de-adly r!ots that br-oke out in the U.S.
Capitol as lawmakers gathered to certify electoral college votes for President-elect Joe Biden’s November election win.
“I grew up in Austria, I’m very aware of Kr!stallnacht or the ‘Night of Br-oken Glass.’ It was a night of ra-mpage aga!nst the Je-ws carried out in 1938 by the N-azi equivalent of the proud boys,” the former Republican Governor said in a video statement. “Wednesday was the day of br-oken glass right here in the United States.”
“I grew up in the ru!ns of a country that going through the loss of its democracy. I was born in 1947, two years after the Second World W-ar. Growing up I was surrounded by br-oken men drinking away their gu!lt over their participation in the ev!lest re-gime in history,” the actor recalled, sharing that his father “would come home dru-nk once or twice a week and he would scre-am and hit us and sc-are my mother.”
Schwarzenegger went on to place the bla-me on Trump for continuing to make baseless cla!ms of election fr-aud and “m!sleading people with lies.” “My father and our neighbors were m!sled also with lies and I know where such lies lead,” he said. “President Trump is a fa!led leader. He will go down in history as the wo-rst President ever.”
In addition to deno-uncing Trump for inc!ting the Capitol r!ots, Schwarzenegger spoke out aga!nst “those elected officials who have enabled his lies and his tre-achery.” “They’re compl!cit with those who carried the flag of self-righteous insu-rrection into the Capitol,” he shared. “We need public servants that serve something larger than their own power or their own party.”
As his video statement came to an end, Schwarzenegger pu-lled out the sword he w!elded in Conan the Barbarian.”Now you see this sword? This is Conan’s sword. Now here’s the thing about swo-rds, the more you temper a swo-rd, the stronger it becomes,” he said. “Our democracy is like the steel of this sw-ord.”
“We need to look past ourselves, our partisan di!sagreements, and put our democracy first. And we need to heal, together with from the tr-auma of what’s just happened. We need to heal, not just as Republicans and Democrats, but as Americans,” Schwarzenegger added, going on to urge his fans, no matter their political beliefs, to join him in supporting President-elect Biden. Continuing, Schwarzenegger said, “President-elect Biden, we stand with you today, tomorrow, and forever in defe-nse of democracy and from those who would thre-aten it.”
This Article First Published On PEOPLE