CNN anchor: I should not have juxtaposed Kristallnacht to Trump’s conduct

An American TV news anchor has apologised for comparing Donald Trump’s conduct to the events leading up to the 1938 Kristallnacht pogrom in Germany.

CNN’s Christiane Amanpour said she “should not have juxtaposed the two thoughts” after an outcry following her show on Thursday, when she invoked the anniversary of Kristallnacht in discussing Trump’s lies, calling the pogrom an “attack on fact.”

She had described Kristallnacht as 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 truth”.

She then added: “After four years of a modern-day assault on those same values by Donald Trump, the Biden-Harris team pledges a return to norms, including the truth.”

It provoked an angry reaction, including from the Israeli foreign ministry, which demanded that she apologise, having argued that her comments were “an affront to the memory of the Holocaust”.

Several Jewish figures say there are grounds for comparison, including former director of the Anti-Defamation League Abe Foxman and the US historian Deborah Lipstadt, who beat Holocaust denier David Irving in a 1996 London defamation trial.

However, most felt that Amanpour overstepped the mark, including Israeli diplomat in Atlanta, Anat Sultan-Dadon, who wrote to CNN to register her “dismay”. On Monday, Amanpour issued a statement, apologising for any upset.

“I observed the 82nd anniversary of Kristallnacht, as I often do,” she said. “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. Hitler and his evils stand alone, of course, in history. I regret any pain my statement may have caused.”