Michael Hayden, former CIA director and one-time head of the National Security Agency, apologized for offending anybody by his use of an image of a Nazi concentration camp in a tweet critical of the separation of families at the U.S. border.
His comments came Monday during an appearance on CNN's "New Day" program.
"I guess I wanted to grab people's attention,” he said. "I have been to (Birkenau) camp several times. And that's why I used that picture. That's the scene where families were separated."
On Saturday, Hayden bashed the Trump administration for separating illegal immigrant children from their parents at the U.S. border.
Along with a photo of the Birkenau death camp at Auschwitz, he tweeted:
"Other governments have separated mothers and children."
During his interview on CNN, he explained: "Let's run the clock back to 1933, which is really what I was trying to address. And in 1933, what did we see in Germany? A cult of personality, a cult of nationalism, a cult of grievance, a press operation that looked like and was the ministry of propaganda and then the punishing of marginalized groups."
Hayden maintained the U.S. was headed in the wrong direction.
"Now look, I know we're not Nazi Germany, but there is a commonality there and a fear on my part that we have standards we have to live up to.
"If I overachieved by comparing it to Birkenau, I apologize to anyone who may have felt offended."
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