Sean Spicer made 2 more regrettable blunders in his Holocaust apology
At a press briefing Tuesday afternoon, the White House press secretary was admonishing Syria for its recent gas attack when he claimed that even Hitler "didn't sink to using chemical weapons." The historically challenged comments stunned reporters in the room, and instantly generated an avalanche of criticism from Jewish groups and Democrats.
Spicer apologized for his remarks on CNN Tuesday evening, but as he spoke, he committed two more unfortunate verbal blunders.
First, as Spicer tried to get on message, he mentioned President Donald Trump's action in Syria, namely "the attempts he's making to destabilize the region and root out ISIS out of Syria."
CNN confirmed after the interview that Spicer indeed meant to say stabilize, not de-stabilize, which naturally have opposite meanings.
It's not the first time he's confused the two words:
Minutes later in the interview, Spicer fumbled over the name of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, in a linguistic misstep so flagrant that CNN host Wolf Blitzer had to jump in and set him straight.
"Bashar al-Assad. I know you've mispronounced his name a few times, but it's Bashar al-Assad," Blitzer said.
Spicer has previously pronounced the Syrian leader's name "Ashad," "Bashad al-Assar" and as The Washington Post's Erik Wemple industriously transcribed, "Bissaa al-Ashar."
The exchanges were roundly mocked on Twitter: