Schwarzenegger, who is a former governor of California and a Republican, said the president “sought a coup by misleading people with lies”.
“President Trump is a failed leader. He will go down in history as the worst president ever,” he said.
“The good thing is that he will soon be as irrelevant as an old tweet.”
The actor then went on to condemn Republicans who stood by Trump while he peddled his lies.
“But what are we to make of those elected officials who have enabled his lies and his treachery?” Schwarzenegger asked.
“I will remind them of what Teddy Roosevelt said: ‘Patriotism means to stand by the country. It does not mean to stand by the president.’
“John F Kennedy wrote a book called Profiles in Courage. A number of members of my own party, because of their own spinelessness, would never see their names in such a book, I guarantee you.
“They’re complicit with those who carried the flag of self-righteous insurrection into the Capitol.”
The actor started his statement by comparing the events at the Capitol last week to Kristallnacht, a night of rampage against Jews carried out in 1938 by “the Nazi equivalent of the Proud Boys”.
He also discussed his upbringing in Austria after the war, and being “surrounded by broken men drinking away the guilt over their participation in the most evil regime in history”.
He shared a “painful memory” of when his father “would come home drunk once or twice a week, and he would scream and hit us and scare my mother”.
“I didn’t hold him totally responsible because our neighbour was doing the same thing to his family, and so was the next neighbour over. I heard it with my own ears and saw it with my own eyes,” Schwarzenegger said.
“They were in physical pain from the shrapnel in their bodies and in emotional pain from what they saw or did.
“It all started with lies, and lies, and lies and intolerance. So being from Europe, I’ve seen first hand how things can spin out of control.”
He said Capitol rioters “did not just break down the doors of the building that housed American democracy, they trampled the very principles on which our country was founded”.
Watch the full video here:
My message to my fellow Americans and friends around the world following this week's attack on the Capitol. pic.twitter.com/blOy35LWJ5
— Arnold (@Schwarzenegger) January 10, 2021