President Donald Trump’s chief of staff on Sunday defended the White House’s omission of a reference to Jews in its statement commemorating Holocaust Memorial Day.
The White House faced criticism on Friday after it neglected to explicitly mention Jews in Friday’s statement about the Holocaust, breaking a usual pattern of acknowledging the 6 million Jews who were killed during the atrocities of World War II.
During an interview on “Meet The Press” on Sunday, White House chief of staff Reince Priebus denied there was “harm or ill-will or offence intended by any of that.” But he said he does not “regret the words” of the statement.
“Obviously that that was what the Holocaust was about. And it’s a horrible event. And obviously a miserable time in history that we remember here at the White House and certainly will never forget the Jewish people that suffered in World War II,” Priebus said.
Priebus pointed to Trump having “dear family members that are Jewish,” a reference to top adviser Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump, the president’s daughter and Kushner’s wife.
“I’m trying to clear it up for you. I mean, everyone’s suffering in the Holocaust, including obviously all of the Jewish people affected and the miserable genocide that occurred is something that we consider to be extraordinarily sad and something that can never be forgotten and something that if we could wipe it off of the history books we could. But we can’t. And it’s terrible,” Priebus said.
Some prominent Democrats were quick to condemn Priebus.
Read the full article by Maxwell Tani at Business Insider Australia.