Donald Trump Jr insists 'gas chamber' comments were a reference to capital punishment, not the Holocaust

Trump Jr also made an apparent gaffe about his father's tax returns, while his sister Ivanka walked out of a challenging interview with Cosmopolitan magazine

Donald Trump Jr speaking at the Republican convention in Cleveland in July (Reuters)

Donald Trump Jr spoke of “warming up the gas chamber” as he complained about the media’s coverage of his father in a Wednesday interview, words that many critics interpreted as a casual reference to the Holocaust.

Speaking to Philadelphia radio station Talk Radio 1210 WPHT, the Republican nominee’s eldest son claimed the political press had shielded Hillary Clinton and the Democratic party establishment from scrutiny. “The media has been her number one surrogate in this. Without the media, this wouldn’t even be a contest, but the media has built her up,” he said.

“They’ve let her slide on every indiscrepancy [sic], on every lie, on every DNC game trying to get Bernie Sanders out of this thing. If Republicans were doing that, they’d be warming up the gas chamber right now.”

Mr Trump Jr later explained that he had been referring not to Nazi gas chambers, but to capital punishment. The gas chamber is still a legal method of execution in three US states. Yet Jewish civil rights group the Anti-Defamation League responded to Mr Trump Jr’s remarks, tweeting: “Trivialization of the Holocaust and gas chambers is NEVER okay… We hope you understand the sensitivity and hurt of making Holocaust jokes.”

Ms Clinton’s Director of Jewish Outreach, Sarah Bard, said in a statement that the comments showed “just how insensitive, divisive, and reckless the Trump campaign is.”

The elder Mr Trump has been criticised during the campaign for sharing an anti-Semitic meme on Twitter, while his son recently posted an image on Instagram that included his father, himself and several campaign surrogates with “Pepe the Frog”, a cartoon animal that has come to symbolise the so-called alt-right movement.

Donald Trump Jr was also caught out in an interview with the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, after being pressed on the matter of his father’s tax returns, which the media and politicians – including, this week, Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan – have called on him to release to the public.

Mr Trump Jr said that was unlikely to happen, “Because he’s got a 12,000-page tax return that would create… financial auditors out of every person in the country asking questions that would detract from his main message.” In other words, the tax return might contain something politically damaging.

Mr Trump Jr’s twin gaffes occurred in the same news cycle that his sister, Ivanka Trump, walked out of an interview with Cosmopolitan magazine amid close questioning about her father’s proposed maternity leave policies.