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A brief history of the Trump administration’s flirtation with Holocaust denial
Spicer’s claim that Hitler didn’t use chemical weapons wasn’t a one-off gaffe.
By
Jacob Gardenswartz@gardenswartzj Apr 12, 2017, 2:20pm EDT
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Photo by Brendan Smialowski/Getty Images
Sean Spicer shocked many when he falsely
claimed on Tuesday that "Hitler didn't even sink to the level of using chemical weapons” during World War II. In normal times, it would probably have been enough to end the career of a spokesperson. But, we are continually reminded, these are not normal times.
Trump and his people are far too familiar with gaffes involving the Holocaust. Spicer’s Tuesday comments are but the latest in a series of anti-Semitic
dog whistles and Holocaust denials emanating from the president, his staff, and his family.
Here’s a quick refresher:
1) Trump tweets an anti-Semitic meme and calls it a “sheriff’s star”
A since-deleted tweet from July 2, 2016.
It’s the summer of 2016, the election campaigns are still being waged, and Trump has just tweeted an image depicting Hillary Clinton with a Star of David and the phrase “Most Corrupt Candidate Ever!” atop a bed of dollar bills. As Vox’s Matt Yglesias
explained, the graphic initially surfaced on an 8chan forum, a hub of white supremacist
alt-right internet trolls. And despite Trump’s fervent
defense that the six-pointed star was really a “Sheriff’s Star, or plain star!” white nationalists the likes of David Duke seemed to be able to
read between the lines about what the image really meant.
2) Donald Trump Jr. denies “warming up the gas chamber” is a reference to the Holocaust
Flash forward to September, when Trump’s son Donald Jr.
compares the media treatment of his father to the atrocities of Holocaust concentration camps. In an interview with Philadelphia-based conservative radio host Chris Stigall on September 14, Trump Jr. claimed that if his father acted like Hillary Clinton, news media would “be warming up the gas chamber right now.”
The media has been her number one surrogate in this. Without the media, this wouldn't even be a contest. But the media has built her up. They've let her slide on every indiscrepancy, on every lie, on every DNC game trying to get Bernie Sanders out of the thing…
I mean, if Republicans were doing that, they'd be warming up the gas chamber right now. It's a very different system — there's nothing fair about it”
Trump’s campaign was quick to deny that the “gas chamber” comment had anything to do with the Holocaust. "Don Jr. was clearly referring to capital punishment to make the case that the media continues to take words out of context in order to serve as the propaganda arm of the Hillary Clinton campaign,” Trump communications adviser Jason Miller
said in a statement. Trump Jr.
told NBC News’s Katy Tur that he was referring to executions in general, not the Holocaust, and often uses the phrase “electric chair” to make the same point.
3) The White House Holocaust Remembrance Day statement doesn’t mention Jews
The trend didn’t stop once Trump took office. On January 27, International Holocaust Remembrance Day, the White House issued a
short statement honoring the “victims, survivors, heroes of the Holocaust.” The statement did not, however, note that 6 million of those victims happened to be Jews.
During the ensuing
controversy, the Trump administration defended its statement, arguing that Jews were not specifically mentioned because there were other groups targeted during the Holocaust. Spokesperson Hope Hicks
told CNN, “we are an incredibly inclusive group and we took into account all of those who suffered.” Many, from historian
Deborah Lipstadt to Anti-Defamation League (ADL) Director
Jonathan Greenblatt, were critical of the statement, with some going so far as to dub it “
Holocaust denial.”
Politico later
revealed that the White House had, in fact, been presented with a statement that mentioned the Jewish people, but blocked its release and went with its own version instead. Trump administration staff continue to
stand behind the statement. Meanwhile, the neo-Nazi site Daily Stormer
celebrated the administration’s omission of Jewish suffering.
4) Trump: questions about anti-Semitism are “insulting”
In a February 16 news conference, Trump was asked by journalist Jake Turx about the
rise in anti-Semitic incidents in the US following his election and the
epidemic of bomb threats against Jewish organizations. He
proceeded to cut Turx off, belittle his question, and deny any anti-Semitism from himself or his campaign:
He said he was going to ask a easy question — okay sit down, I understand the rest of your question. Folks, number one, I am the least anti-Semitic person that you have seen in your entire life. Number two, racism. The least racist.
We did relatively well — quiet, quiet, quiet — see he lied about what was going to be a very straight simple question. I hate the charge. I find it repulsive, I hate even the question because people that know me and you heard the Prime Minister, you heard Netanyahu yesterday. Did you hear him, Bibi, he said I've known Donald Trump for a long time and said forget it so you should take that instead of getting up and asking a very insulting question like that. Just shows you about the press but that's the way the press is.
Jewish organizations were aghast at the way Trump brushed aside legitimate fears of anti-Semitism and violence against Jews. The ADL issued a
statement calling Trump’s response “mind-boggling,” while the American Jewish Committee
implored the president “not to bully reporters asking questions potentially affecting millions of fellow Americans.”
About a week later, Trump formally condemned the “horrible” and “painful” anti-Semitic threats targeting Jewish community centers, calling them “a very sad reminder of the work that still must be done to root out hate and prejudice and evil.” Still, some Jewish groups felt like his statement was too little, too late.
“The president’s sudden acknowledgment of anti-Semitism is a Band-Aid on the cancer of anti-Semitism that has infected his own administration,” executive director of the Anne Frank Center for Mutual Respect Steven Goldstein
told the New York Times. “When President Trump responds to anti-Semitism proactively and in real time, and without pleas and pressure, that’s when we’ll be able to say this president has turned a corner. This is not that moment.”
5) Spicer and Hitler and chemical weapons
Which brings us to Tuesday, April 11, when Sean Spicer
falsely said that Hitler didn’t use chemical weapons during the Holocaust, drawing a distinction to what Syrian President Bashar al-Assad did to his people. In his attempts to clarify, Spicer didn’t do himself any favors:
I think when you come to sarin gas, there was no … he was not using the gas on his own people in the same way that Assad is doing. There was not … he brought them into the Holocaust centers, I understand that. But what I’m saying is the way that Assad used them, where he went into towns, dropped them, the use of it — I appreciate the clarification, [denying that Hitler used gas] was not the intent.
Aside from the bizarre labeling of concentration camps as “Holocaust centers,” Spicer’s follow-up is again false. As Vox’s Zach Beauchamp
explained, “Prior to the construction of gas chambers, SS soldiers would drive around so-called ‘gas vans’ — vehicles with hermetically sealed compartments that could be flooded with poison gas — and used them to execute Jews in, yes,
their towns.”
Spicer has since apologized for the remarks,
saying on CNN he didn’t want to distract from Trump’s attempts to “destabilize the region.” He’s continued on this
apology tour,
telling NBC’s Peter Alexander, “I’m absolutely sorry, especially during a week like this, to make a comparison that is inappropriate and inexcusable.”
After Spicer’s latest controversy, many were quick to point to
Godwin’s Law, the so-called “
first rule of politics.” The term was coined by Mike Godwin, the famed internet lawyer and journalist, who argued that you should never, ever make Hitler comparisons, as they will rarely serve you well.
Unfortunately, the Trump administration hasn’t seemed to learn this lesson.
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I bet you hear that quite often!
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