Jerry Springer argued Donald Trump is destroying the American dream – as he spoke movingly about how his parents were saved from the Nazis and brought over to England from Germany.

Mr Springer was born at 11.45pm in a bomb shelter in Highgate station in 1944, and grew up in Belvedere Court in Hampstead Garden Suburb.

His family took their chance at a new future, moving to America, clutching their tickets for Ellis Island when Mr Springer was five.

At a World Jewish Relief fundraising event on Wednesday, Mr Springer described how the charity signed the visa for his parents’ safe passage on the Kindertransport in 1939.

Pausing for a long breath, visibly moved, the 73-year-old said: “My grandparents said to their kids, as we would all say to our kids – you go first. And so they got their visas and that’s the reason I’m here tonight.”

Mr Springer’s parents arrived safely, although 27 members of his family died in the Holocaust.

In conversation with BBC journalist Emily Maitlis, Mr Springer criticised President Trump for his policy of building a wall across the Mexican boarder.

He also warned that millions of Americans would be left destitute without universal healthcare.

Describing Trump’s election as a reaction by an angry America who felt ridiculed by an elite, Mr Springer said the real test would be if President Trump sought a second term and was reelected.

Mr Springer said: “We like to think America is special.

“It’s the only country in the history of the world that was created by an idea…

“The destination is an absolutely open society where it doesn’t matter who your parents were, where you were from, your ethnic group, how you pray to God, or if you pray to God.

“The Statue of Liberty is America and metaphorically they want to take it away and replace it with a wall.

“If we accept Trump as the norm, if we think stars and stripes can mean that it’s great if you’re white and Christian, but not if you’re Muslim, or Hispanic, or African American, if we suddenly say that’s ok, that’s the norm - then we’re saying that all this that we’re teaching our kids about America, being a shining city on a hill [is wrong.]

Mr Springer added: “That’s when I get emotional about Trump, he’s screwing with that dream and that’s not America.”