Charlie, just say I made a mistake and move on.
Via Politico:
The New York Democrat was referencing comments he made to a New York NBC affiliate on Wednesday morning as the fire raged and details began to trickle out that the situation was the most “horrific” thing that had befallen his district in his 22 terms in Congress.
“This is a very serious thing. It’s our community’s 9/11, even though we don’t know how it started,” Rangel said.
At the time, no deaths had been confirmed and the cause of the blast was still unknown.
Rep. Charles Rangel on Friday explained comments he made earlier this week about a building collapse in Harlem in which he likened what happened to the 9/11 attacks.
“When I first described as our community’s 9/11 what we now know was a gas explosion, I was referring to the chaos and shock that resulted from the tragic incident that occurred in the heart of my beloved congressional district in East Harlem on Wednesday morning,” Rangel wrote in Time. “While it was neither a terrorist attack nor comparable to 9/11 in scope and scale, the suffering from loss or injuries of loved ones has been as painful and horrific to the entire community where I was born and lived all my life.”