Spike Lee compared Donald Trump to Hitler in an acceptance speech at a film critics’ awards ceremony, adding that “everyone is laughing at the United States.”
The director made his comments when he accepted a special award from the New York Film Critics Circle for his short film New York, New York. The film premiered in May 2020 and Lee described it as a “love letter to his people.”
Lee said comments about Trump were recorded on Jan. 6, the day of the Capitol breach, which he said was “a very sad day in American history.”
“We are living in a very serious time in America,” the director said. “Its president, President Agent Orange, will go down in history with people like Hitler … all his boys, they will go on the wrong side of history.”
Lee has a history of fighting with Trump, including calling him a “shit” for Trump’s response to the 2017 Charlotteville protests, during which activist Heather Heyer was assassinated by white supremacist James Fields. Trump accused him of a “racist hit on his president” after Lee’s earlier acceptance speech at the 2019 Leescar.