CNN International anchor Christiane Amanpour on Monday apologized for comparing US President Trump’s term in office to Kristallnacht.
“I observed the 82nd anniversary of Kristallnacht, as I often do – it is the event that began the horrors of the Holocaust. I also noted President Trump's attacks on history, facts, knowledge, and truth. I should not have juxtaposed the two thoughts,” she said at the start of her program.
“Hitler and his evils stand alone, of course, in history. I regret any pain my statement may have caused. My point was to say how democracy can potentially slip away, and how we must always zealously guard our democratic values,” added Amanpour.
Amanpour came under fire after she called the Trump presidency an “assault” on human civilization comparable to that carried out by Nazi Germany during the Kristallnacht pogroms in 1938.
“This week 82 years ago, Kristallnacht happened,” Amanpour said at the start of her show last Thursday. “It was the Nazis’ warning shot across the bow of our human civilization that led to genocide against a whole identity and, in that tower of burning books, it led to an attack on fact, knowledge, history and proof,” she added.
The comments were criticized by media critics as well as by Jewish organizations, including the Orthodox Jewish Public Affairs Council and the Anti-Defamation League.
On the weekend, Israel’s Diaspora Affairs Minister, Omer Yankelevitch, penned a letter to CNN President Jeff Zucker, demanding an apology from Amanpour.