Facing calls to resign, Spicer apologizes for 'inappropriate' Hitler-Assad comments

Spicer said that even Hitler "didn't sink to using chemical weapons" during WWII

White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer on Tuesday apologized for referring to a suspected sarin gas attack in Syria he said that even Hitler "didn't sink to using chemical weapons" during World War Two.

The official faced an immediate backlash and growing calls to resign after making the comment.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi was among those accusing Spicer of "downplaying the horror of the Holocaust."

"Sean Spicer must be fired, and the President must immediately disavow his spokesman’s statements," the official said in a statement. "Either he is speaking for the President, or the President should have known better than to hire him."

Israel's Minister of Interior Yisrael Katz twitter that Spicer should apologize or resign over his "outrageous" comments.

Later on CNN, Spicer said that he "mistakenly used an inappropriate and insensitive reference," offering an unreserved apology.

"You had someone as despicable as Hitler who didn't even sink to using chemical weapons," Spicer said during a press briefing in response to questions about the implications of the deadly chemical attack last on the rebel-held village of Khan Sheikhun last week.

The attack killed at least 87 civilians, including 31 children, and has been widely attributed to Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad's forces, which are backed by Russia.

"You have to, if you're Russia, ask yourself is this a country and a regime that you want to align yourself with?" Spicer continued, discussing Russia's support for Assad.

"At what point do they recognize that they are now getting on the wrong side of history in a really bad way, really quickly."

Adolf Hitler, the maniacal leader of Germany's Nazi Party during WW2, masterminded the murder of six million Jews in concentration camps throughout occupied Europe using Zyklon B gas, in what was known as the"final solution."

His comments, on the first day of the Jewish festival of Passover, brought looks of astonishment from the assembled White House press corps, who offered Spicer a chance to clarify.

"I think when you come to sarin gas, there was no -- he was not using the gas on his own people the same way that Assad is doing," Spicer said, returning to the subject.

Hitler, he continued, "brought them into the Holocaust centers, I understand that. But I'm saying in the way that Assad used them, where he went into towns, dropped them down, to innocent -- into the middle of towns, it was brought... so the use of it, I appreciate the clarification, that was not the intent."

In a further written clarification, Spicer said he was in no way "trying to lessen the horrendous nature of the Holocaust, however, I was trying to draw a contrast of the tactic of using airplanes to drop chemical weapons on innocent people."

It was not the first time this week that Spicer has found himself in rhetorical difficulty over Syria.

On Monday, he suggested that Trump could take military action if Assad were to drop more barrel bombs -- a regular occurrence in Syria's brutal war and a red line that would spell almost certain US military action.

The White House privately walked back his comments.

Later in Tuesday's briefing, Spicer also declared Iran a failed state.

Spicer's flub came as the White House accused Russia of embarking on a misinformation campaign designed to "confuse the world" about what the United States and numerous other reports says is the Syrian regime's use of sarin against its own people.

Russia, which along with Iran has deployed forces to help Assad win the six-year-old civil war, continues to cast doubt on the regime's involvement in the chemical attack, to Washington's fury.

America's top diplomat Rex Tillerson, who arrived in Moscow on Tuesday for talks with his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov, is expected to challenge Russia to distance itself from Assad and his Iranian backers and to work with Washington's Western and Arab allies to find a political solution to the conflict with Syria under new leadership.