Trump campaign lashes out at media over Trump Jr. 'gas chamber' comment

Donald Trump's campaign lashed out at the media on Thursday after some construed a comment from Donald Trump Jr. as a Holocaust joke.

Trump Jr. said during an interview on Wednesday that the media protected the Democratic National Committee as it sought to force Sen. Bernie Sanders from the primary race earlier and added that “if Republicans were doing that, they’d be warming up the gas chamber right now.”


Trump Jr.’s comments came during an appearance on a Philadelphia talk radio station, where he said the media has also gone out of its way to protect Hillary Clinton throughout the length of her presidential run.

“The media has been her number one surrogate in this. Without the media, this wouldn’t even be a contest, but the media has built her up,” Trump Jr. said on WPHT radio. “They’ve let her slide on every indiscrepancy, on every lie, on every DNC game trying to get Bernie Sanders out of this thing. If Republicans were doing that, they’d be warming up the gas chamber right now.”

Conservative independent presidential candidate Evan McMullin seized on the comment from Trump, writing on Twitter that it was “an unsurprising Nazi reference from the ‘alt-right’ movement's presidential campaign. This is the real Trump.” Clinton then joined in, retweeting McMullin’s message from her own account.

The National Jewish Democratic Council also weighed in with a statement, arguing that Trump’s comments were unsurprising given his campaign’s track record but nonetheless “have no place in a presidential campaign.”

“Donald Trump Jr.’s reference to gas chambers is outrageous. With its allusions to the Holocaust, remarks such as these have no place in a presidential campaign,” the NJDC’s statement read.

But Trump spokesman Jason Miller said the comments were wildly misconstrued.

"The liberal dishonest media is so quick to attack one of the Trumps that they never let the truth get in the way of a good smear," Miller said in a statement. "Don Jr. was clearly referring to capital punishment to make the case that the media continues to take words out of context in order to serve as the propaganda arm of the Hillary Clinton campaign – something that’s only gotten worse as Trump’s poll numbers have improved."