Brooklyn pols call for Spicer’s ouster

Hitler remarks from White House spokesman draw fire

April 12, 2017 By Paula Katinas Brooklyn Daily Eagle

White House press secretary Sean Spicer talks to the media during the daily press briefing on Tuesday, April 11. His remarks on Syria and Hitler were heavily criticized. AP Photo/Andrew Harnik

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Brooklyn elected officials reacted to White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer’s remarks Tuesday about Adolf Hitler and chemical weapons with shock and anger as Trump’s spokesman attempted to repair the damage his controversial statement generated.

Two elected officials, U.S. Rep. Hakeem Jeffries and Borough President Eric Adams, called for Spicer to be fired.

“In the latest disgraceful incident from the Bannon-led White House, the president’s spokesman made the unconscionable assertion that Adolf Hitler did not use chemical weapons to kill millions of innocent Jewish men, women and children. On Passover, nonetheless. He must be terminated. Immediately,” Jeffries (D-Central Brooklyn-Coney Island) said in a statement.

Adams, who called Spicer’s remarks “callous,” added that the press secretary’s assertion from the White House podium “is a slap in the face to the memory of every man, woman and child who was murdered in gas chambers at Nazi concentration camps.”

During his daily briefing for reporters on Tuesday, Spicer, seeking to defend President Donald Trump’s decision to order a missile strike on Syria last week, noted that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad used chemical weapons against his own people; killing children and adults alike. Spicer also stated that Adolf Hitler never used chemical weapons during World War II.

“You know, you had someone as despicable as Hitler who didn’t even sink to using chemical weapons,” The New York Times quoted Spicer as saying.

But Hitler did order the systematic extermination of millions of Jews who were put to death in gruesome gas chambers in Nazi concentration camps.

At one point, Spicer appeared to refer to concentration camps as “Holocaust centers.”

U.S. Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-Upper West Side-Bensonhurst, Bay Ridge) expressed his disgust with Spicer on Twitter, writing that the remark was “an unbelievably inappropriate, uninformed, offensive and inexcusable remark from the person designated as official White House spokesperson.”

Steven Goldstein, executive director of the Anne Frank Center for Mutual Respect in Manhattan, was also among those calling for Spicer to be fired.

“Sean Spicer has engaged in Holocaust denial, the most offensive form of fake news imaginable, by denying Hitler gassed millions of Jews to death. Spicer’s statement is the most evil slur upon a group of people we have ever heard from a White House press secretary,” Goldstein said, adding that Spicer “now lacks the integrity” to continue serving as the Trump administration’s spokesman.

On Wednesday, Spicer was in full damage control mode, offering an apology for the remarks he made a day earlier. CNN reported that at a forum at the Newseum in Washington, D.C., Spicer labeled his remarks, “inexcusable and reprehensible.”

Spicer also admitted that he had made a mistake and that he had “let the president down.”