"The fact that they did that," Tim Kaine said of the Trump adminstration, "and imposed this religious test against Muslims in the executive orders on the same day, this is not a coincidence." | AP Photo Kaine casts Trump officials as Holocaust deniers

Sen. Tim Kaine on Sunday said it was "not a coincidence" that the White House imposed a "religious test" on Muslims as part of President Donald Trump's immigration ban and omitted references to Jews in a Holocaust remembrance statement on the same day.

In an interview with NBC's "Meet the Press," the Virginia Democrat and Hillary Clinton's former running mate pointed a finger at White House chief strategist Steve Bannon, who served as an executive at the conservative news outlet Breitbart.


"All of these things are happening together," Kaine said. "When you have the chief political adviser in the White House, Steve Bannon, who is connected with a news organization that traffics in white supremacy and anti-Semitism, and they put out a Holocaust statement that omits any mention of Jews."

Kaine added, "President Obama, President Bush always talk about the Holocaust in connection with the slaughter of Jews. The final solution was about the slaughter of Jews. We have to remember this. This is what Holocaust denial is," talking about the fringe movement that refuses to acknowledge that Nazi Germany under Adolf Hitler deliberately murdered 6 million Jews.

"The fact that they did that," Kaine said of the Trump adminstration, "and imposed this religious test against Muslims in the executive orders on the same day, this is not a coincidence."

In a separate interview on "Meet the Press," White House chief of staff Reince Priebus said he did not regret the International Holocaust Remembrance Day statement, which cited "the victims, survivors, heroes of the Holocaust" without mentioning that Jews were killed.

"Everyone's suffering in the Holocaust, including, obviously, all of the Jewish people affected and the miserable genocide that occurred, is something that we consider to be extraordinarily sad and something that can never be forgotten and something that if we could wipe it off of the history books we could," Priebus said.