Early Tuesday, Sean Spicer, the White House press secretary, made the peculiar and highly inaccurate claim that Adolf Hitler never used chemical weapons on his own people. Don’t worry, you don’t need to get your vision checked. You read that correctly.
At a press briefing, Spicer made this wildly inaccurate assertion in an attempt to argue that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is worse than Hitler. However, it is clear that Spicer needs a history lesson, because Hitler did in fact use chemical weapons to kill millions of innocent people during the Holocaust.
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The briefing was designed to address journalists’ concerns about whether U.S. relations with our ally Russia will be altered after Syria perpetrated chemical attacks last week. During the press conference, Spicer stated, “We didn’t use chemical weapons in World War II. You know, you had someone as despicable as Hitler who didn’t even sink to using chemical weapons.” Hold up, what? Really, Hitler never sunk to the disgusting level of using chemical weapons, just like Assad did?
It’s a commonly known fact that Hitler used gas vans and gas chambers to commit the genocide of millions of Jews, but apparently Spicer missed these history lessons during elementary, middle and high school. The press secretary’s ignorance is unacceptable from someone in his position.
Later in the press conference, Spicer said, “I think when you come to Sarin gas—there was no, [Hitler] was not using the gas on his own people the same way that Assad is doing. I mean, there was clearly—there was not—in the, he brought them into the Holocaust centers, I understand that—but I’m saying in the way Assad used them, where he went into towns, dropped them down to innocent—into the middle of towns.”
Now is not the time to use alternative facts. Nobody should ever have to hear this kind of misinformation, especially about a tragedy that claimed the lives of millions of Jews. Nobody should have to listen to someone deny the Holocaust or the severity of the crimes that happened during the Holocaust. Not now, not ever, but especially not now. It’s currently Passover, that is, the Jewish holiday that celebrates when the Jewish people was released from slavery in Egypt.
Since this press briefing, Spicer has tried to redeem his highly inaccurate and insensitive statements by saying, “In no way was I trying to lessen the horrendous nature of the Holocaust. I was trying to draw a distinction of the tactic of using airplanes to drop chemical weapons on population center. Any attack on innocent people is reprehensible and inexcusable.” Yes, because dropping chemical weapons from airplanes to kill your country’s people is entirely different from using chemical weapons in vans or chambers to kill your country’s people.
BREAKING: Spicer clarifies clarification on Hitler-Assad comparison. @NBCNews pic.twitter.com/5quIRf0fJW
— Peter Alexander (@PeterAlexander) April 11, 2017
Yes, both acts are heinous. Mr. Spicer got that much right. However, his haphazard apology should not distract you from the fact that he did indeed deny that Holocaust victims were, without a doubt, Hitler’s own people. Essentially, Spicer denied the validity of the millions of Jews who were 100 percent innocent people, many of whom were German citizens, and all of whom were victims of chemical weapons (specifically Zyklon B, also known as crystalline hydrogen cyanide).