RNC Spokesman Tells CNN That The GOP Is Cool With Mike Huckabee’s Holocaust Comments

It appears the Republican Party sent a clear message to its White House hopefuls on Tuesday morning that attacking one of their own is worthy of condemnation, but comparing the sitting President of the United States to Adolf Hitler is perfectly acceptable and well within the bounds of decency. Appearing on CNN’s New Day Tuesday morning, RNC Communications Director Sean Spicer told host Alisyn Camerota that it isn’t the party’s job to tell its members how to speak about policy or what comments they should make. This was in response to GOP Presidential candidate Mike Huckabee saying that President Obama is leading Israelis “to the door of the oven” by making a nuclear deal with Iran.

Of course, this is a complete reversal to how the committee has reacted to personal insult spewing Republican frontrunner Donald Trump. Many times over the past few weeks, RNC leadership and other prominent GOPers have called on Trump to cool his rhetoric, especially when attacking other Republican candidates. (With 15 other GOP hopefuls, Trump has had ample opportunity to toss out dickish barbs.) However, making inflammatory and out-of-bounds statements about the Kenyan usurper Hussein Obummer is on page one of the RNC playbook, so have at it.

After Camerota played a clip of the Huckster wholeheartedly defending his comments to NBC’s Matt Lauer Tuesday morning — coming on the heels of Huck making multiple media appearance on Monday where he doubled down on the remarks — she asked Spicer whether the RNC would condemn Huckabee’s comments. Spicer said the following in response:

“Our job is not to sit here and call balls and strikes and talk about, ‘Well, you shouldn’t talk about this policy a particular way or you shouldn’t describe it.’ Governor Huckabee made his comments, he clearly then articulated why he made them — just with the clip you just made — and they should speak for themselves. It’s not my job or the RNC’s job to get in the middle and say don’t talk about this way or that that way. We’ll have conversations about what’s in the best interest of the party privately. But we’re not going to sit here and condemn someone for how they talk about a policy.”

Translation: He said something critical of Nobama, which we fully support. But, he also labeled him a Nazi, so we can’t come out and publicly back him. Now, if he said that a Republican Senator wasn’t a war hero, then we’d have a problem. But, he didn’t, so no foul.

Below is video of the interview, courtesy of ThinkProgress: