Sean Spicer Hitler gaffe: White House press secretary admits he 'screwed up' by comparing atrocities

White House press secretary Sean Spicer has admitted he "screwed up" and let Donald Trump down by claiming Adolf Hitler never used chemical weapons.

Mr Spicer said he was personally and professionally pained after being roundly condemned for suggesting President Assad's warfare conduct was worse than that of the Nazi leader.

"There's no comparing atrocities," he said during an interview at an event at a museum in Washington.

"I made a mistake. There's no other way to say it. I got into a topic that I shouldn't have and I screwed up."

He added: "I hope I showed that I understand that I did that and that sought people's forgiveness because I screwed up."

Mr Spicer said his comments were professionally upsetting because he had "distracted" attention from President Trump's "unbelievable" couple of weeks.

While he confirmed Mr Trump had not spoken to him directly about the gaffe, he refused to say if the US president had passed on a message to him.

"I don't get into private conversations," he said. "This is my mistake, my bad that I needed to fix.

"This was mine. Mine to own, mine to apologise for and mine to ask for forgiveness for."

Mr Spicer faced a fierce backlash over his comments, including calls for him to be removed from his post, which arose while he fielded questions about the Syria conflict.

Discussing the Assad's regime's alleged use of the weapons, Mr Spicer told reporters: "You have someone as despicable as Hitler who didn't even sink to using chemical weapons."

Millions of Jewish people were killed in gas chambers by the Nazis during World War Two.

After the briefing, Mr Spicer emailed a statement to reporters which read: "In no way was I trying to lessen the horrendous nature of the Holocaust. I was trying to draw a distinction of the tactic of using airplanes to drop chemical weapons on population centers. Any attack on innocent people is reprehensible and inexcusable."