Sean Spicer says even Hitler didn’t gas his own people, before clarifying ‘my blunder’

White House press secretary Sean Spicer has apologised for a clumsy reference to the Holocaust and Syrian President Bashar Assad’s use of chemical weapons, in which he suggested that even Hitler didn’t gas his own people.

Spicer said in an interview with CNN that he mistakenly used “an inappropriate, insensitive reference to the Holocaust.” He says there was no comparison and “it was a mistake to do that.” He adds, “It was my blunder.”

Spicer had said earlier that Hitler “didn’t even sink to using chemical weapons” in a jaw-dropping comparison to Syria that drew instant rebuke from Jewish groups and critics who noted it ignored Hitler’s use of gas chambers to exterminate Jews during the Holocaust.

Spicer was attempting to discuss the horror of the chemical weapons attack last week in Syria, which the Trump administration is blaming on President Bashar al-Assad.

“You had someone as despicable as Hitler who didn’t even sink to using chemical weapons,” Spicer said, arguing that Russia and other countries that support Assad — whom Spicer at one point referred to as “Ashad” — are on the wrong side of history.