CNN International anchor Christiane Amanpour has apologized for comparing President Trump’s four years in office to Kristallnacht after drawing condemnation in both the US and Israel.
The veteran correspondent told her viewers Monday that she regrets any pain her remarks caused.
“And finally tonight, a comment on my program at the end of last week. I observed the 82nd anniversary of Kristallnacht, as I often do – it is the event that began the horrors of the Holocaust,” she said about the “Night of Crystal,” a series of violent Nazi pogroms.
“I also noted President Trump’s attacks on history, facts, knowledge, and truth. I should not have juxtaposed the two thoughts,” Amanpour, 62, continued.
“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,” she added.
In her inflammatory comments last week, Amanpour said: “After four years of a modern-day assault on those same values by Donald Trump, the Biden-Harris team pledges a return to normal.”
Amanpour was assailed by the Anti-Defamation League, officials in the Trump administration and the Israeli government.
Omer Yankelevich, Israel’s minister of diaspora affairs, accused her of making the comparison for the sake of “cheap headlines or a political agenda,” The Jerusalem Post reported.
He called on CNN to be a partner in fighting anti-Semitism, according to the Israel Hayom newspaper.