Former California governor and Hollywood action star Arnold Schwarzenegger posted a seven-minute video on Sunday, in which he called President Donald Trump a “failed leader” and “the worst president ever”.
Mr Schwarzenegger also chastised some of his Republican Party colleagues for their support of those who stormed the US Capitol building last week.
He equated the scenes of carnage and broken glass in and around Congress to “Kristallnacht”, or the “night of broken glass”, in Nazi Germany in 1938, when synagogues were torched and Jewish businesses and homes destroyed.
Sitting behind a desk, with the flags of the US and the state of California behind him, he spoke of his years growing up in Austria under the shadow of the Second World War and the guilt his father, a former Nazi Party member, felt over his actions.
Mr Schwarzenegger’s message was deeply personal as he discussed his own thoughts on what patriotism means.
Brandishing the sword from his 1982 Conan the Barbarian film, he said: "Our democracy is like the steel of this sword. The more it is tempered the stronger it becomes.
"I believe as shaken as we are we will come out stronger ... we need to hold accountable the people who brought us to this unforgiving point.”
He called on all people regardless of their political affiliation to get behind president-elect Joe Biden.
“We need to heal not just as Republicans and Democrats but as Americans," Mr Schwarzenegger said.
"I ask you to join me to say to president-elect Biden, 'We wish you great success.
"If you succeed our nation succeeds ... we support you with all our hearts.
He said to those who threaten the democratic ideas of the US: “You will never win."
The star of action films including Conan the Barbarian and The Terminator, Mr Schwarzenegger, was governor of California from 2003 to 2011.
He told Germany's Bild am Sonntag newspaper that his message for Mr Trump was: "You are terminated, Mr President".
