Sean Spicer claims Hitler didn't use 'gas on his own people,' calls concentration camps 'Holocaust centers'

White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer on Tuesday argued that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad was even worse than Adolf Hitler. "You had someone as despicable as Hitler who didn't even sink to using chemical weapons," Spicer said, discussing the chemical attack last week in Syria that killed dozens of people, including children.

When later asked to clarify his comment, which seemingly overlooked Hitler's use of gas chambers, Spicer doubled down. "He was not using the gas on his own people the same way that Assad is doing," Spicer said.

As he tried to explain his remark, Spicer referred to the concentration camps where millions died as "Holocaust centers." "[Hitler] brought them into the Holocaust centers, I understand that," Spicer said. "I was saying in the way that Assad used them where he went into town, dropped them into the middle of town."

The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

Spicer later released a statement explaining he was "in no way" trying to "lessen the horrendous nature of the Holocaust." "[H]owever, I was trying to draw a contrast of the tactic of using airplanes to drop chemical weapons on innocent people," he said.

Watch Spicer's comment and subsequent clarifications below. Becca Stanek