The executive director of the Anne Frank Center for Mutual Respect said Wednesday that President Donald Trump should fire White House press secretary Sean Spicer for incorrectly asserting that Adolf Hitler did not use chemical weapons during World War II.
“He’s got to leave,” said Steven Goldstein, speaking on CNN’s “New Day.” “President Trump has got to fire Sean Spicer.”
Spicer apologized Tuesday after saying Hitler “didn’t even sink to using chemical weapons” during World War II in an effort to shame Russia’s alliance with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and his use of chemical weapons.
The comment was immediately decried, and after a series of attempts to clear up his words, Spicer made multiple apologies in an exclusive interview with CNN’s Wolf Blitzer Tuesday afternoon.
“I was obviously trying to make a point about the heinous acts that Assad had made against his own people last week, using chemical weapons and gas. Frankly, I mistakenly made an inappropriate and insensitive reference to the Holocaust, for which there is no comparison,” Spicer said. “And for that I apologize. It was a mistake to do that.”
But speaking with “New Day” co-host Alisyn Camerota, Goldstein said the apologies came too late.
“Let me explain why we can’t accept his apology — it took him three apology attempts to finally sort of get it right,” Goldstein said.
“The problem with Sean Spicer and this administration is, they don’t have the DNA of compassion and they don’t have the DNA of the knowledge of history and I come from a people who lost 6,000 people a day gassed in Auschwitz — any sixth-grader knows what Sean Spicer should know,” he added.