CNN senior political analyst John Avlon urged Democratic New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to apologize for comparing migrant detention centers to concentration camps on the network Wednesday morning.
The debate on concentration camps began on Monday night when Ocasio-Cortez said in an Instagram Live video, “The United States is running concentration camps on our southern border, and that is exactly what they are. They are concentration camps.”
“I do feel like every few months, we’re on television talking about how Nazi comparisons don’t work well. And here we are back again, Nazi comparisons don’t work that well,” Sarah Isger stated on CNN. “There’s some real outrage out there, perhaps, but a lot of faux outrage, I would say.”
“I think it’s more serious than that. First of all, I mean the Holocaust is the Holocaust. Holocaust metaphors are ‘beyond problematic.’ And it’s clear because she said ‘never again’ means something. That she was referring to it,” Avlon responded. “She said later she meant to make the comparison to internment camps. Look internment camps are horrific. The key difference being millions of people systematic murdered by a state.”
He continued, “That doesn’t fly. And when we start to rationalize it and put it in context, we’re saying basically words don’t matter anymore in politics. We’ve all become numb to it. This is across the line. It’s not that hard to apologize. She should do it. This is unacceptable.”
Despite facing criticism for the comparison, Ocasio-Cortez has repeatedly stood by it.
Tuesday afternoon, she retweeted a clip from Hill.tv’s Saagar Enjeti interview with Mark Morgan, the acting director for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, adding, “Ah yes, because history knows that people who run concentration camp systems almost always acknowledge to the public what they’re doing.”
