Spicer On Hitler Comment: 'I Screwed Up'

WASHINGTON (CBSNewYork/AP) -- White House press secretary Sean Spicer is seeking forgiveness a day after saying that Adolf Hitler "didn't even sink to using chemical weapons" during World War II.

Spicer apologized again Wednesday morning, calling the remarks "inexcusable and reprehensible."

"I screwed up," Spicer said during a forum at the Newseum in Washington. "There's no comparing atrocities."

Spicer said he "let the president down."

"On both a personal level and professional level that will definitely go down as not a very good day in my history," Spicer added. "This was my mistake, my bad that I needed to fix... this was mine, mine to own, mine to apologize for and mine to ask for forgiveness for."

Spicer's comments, said during a White House briefing Tuesday, drew instant rebuke from Jewish groups and critics who noted it ignored Hitler's use of gas chambers to exterminate Jews during the Holocaust.

Spicer was attempting to discuss the horror of the chemical weapons attack last week in Syria, which the Trump administration is blaming on President Bashar Assad.

The comments drew a backlash particularly because they came at the start of Passover.

Steven Goldstein, director of the Anne Frank Center, said Spicer "delivered one of the most repulsive, prejudiced and grotesque statements we have ever heard delivered from a White House podium."

Some are calling on Spicer to resign or be fired.

(© Copyright 2017 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)