Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine, the 2016 Democratic nominee for vice president, argued Sunday it is “not a coincidence” that President Trump’s executive order instituting a travel ban from seven countries featuring Muslim-majority populations came on the same day where the White House issued a statement commemorating Holocaust Remembrance Day that did not mention killings of the Jewish people.
After accusing White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus of being unable to spell out how the travel ban works, Kaine told “Meet The Press” that the “irony is not lost” on him that the ban was announced the same day as the Holocaust statement, saying that the decision to “scrub” mention of Jews in the statement was “horribly, horribly mishandled.”
“The irony is not lost on me that it was issued the same day as the White House issued their Holocaust Remembrance Day proclamation that unlike any previous administration removed all reference from Jews,” Kaine said. “So you put a religious test on Muslims and you scrub reference to Jews in the Holocaust rembrance. This was horribly, horribly mishandled.”
“Senator, that’s a tough charge. Do you think it’s more than a coincidence that it all happened Friday?” host Chuck Todd pressed.
“I think all of these things are happening together,” Kaine said, pointing to White House chief strategist Stephen Bannon’s ties to Breitbart, who he said “traffics in white supremacy and anti-Semitism.”
“Earlier administrations have done these statements, and so the first thing you do is pull up to see what earlier statements have said, and the earlier statements — President Obama, President Bush, always talked about the Holocaust in connection with the slaughter of Jews,” Kaine said.
“We have to remember this. This is what Holocaust denial is. It’s either to deny it happened, or many Holocaust deniers acknowledge, ‘oh yeah, people were killed, but it was a lot of innocent people. Jews weren’t targeted,'” Kaine said. “The fact that they did that and imposed this religious test against Muslims in the executive orders on the same day — this is not a coincidence.”
The White House said Saturday they did not mention Jewish people in the statement “because others were killed too.”
