Spike Lee has likened Donald Trump to Hitler in an acceptance speech at a film critics awards show, adding that “the whole world 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 was released in May 2020 and Lee described it as a “love letter to its people”.

Lee said the comments about the Trump were recorded on 6 January, the day of the Capitol breach, which he said was “a very sad day in the history of America”.

“We are living in a very serious time in America,” said the director. “His president, President Agent Orange, will go down in history with the likes of Hitler … all his boys, they are going down on the wrong side of history.”

Lee has a history of sparring with Trump, including calling him a “motherfucker” over Trump’s response to the 2017 Charlotteville protests, during which activist Heather Heyer was murdered by white supremacist James Fields. Trump accused him of a “racist hit on your president” after an earlier acceptance speech by Lee at the 2019 Oscars.