Donald Trump Jr. Photo: Facebook.

One of Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump’s sons took heat on Thursday after making what some interpreted to be a Holocaust reference during an attack on the media.

In an interview with Philadelphia radio station WPHT, Donald Trump Jr. accused the media of aiding Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton throughout the presidential campaign, saying: “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. They’ve let her slide on every indiscrepancy, 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.”

Criticism of Trump’s comment was quick to follow. Rabbi Abraham Cooper, associate dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles, told The Algemeiner that Trump’s words were “outrageous and inappropriate.”

“He should apologize immediately,” Cooper said.

In a series of tweets directed at Trump, the Anti-Defamation League said, “Trivialization of the Holocaust and gas chambers is never okay. We hope you understand the sensitivity and hurt of making Holocaust jokes. We hope you retract.”

NBC News reported that Trump later said he had been referring to capital punishment, not the Holocaust, and that he normally used the words “electric chair” instead of “gas chamber” when making the point.

In a statement, Trump campaign spokesman Jason Miller blamed the media for the controversy. “The liberal, dishonest media is so quick to attack one of the Trumps that they never let the truth get in the way of a good smear,” Miller said. “Don Jr. was clearly referring to capital punishment to make the case that the media continues to take words out of context in order to serve as the propaganda arm of the Hillary Clinton campaign — something that’s only gotten worse as Trump’s poll numbers have improved.”