White House Spox John Kirby Breaks Down While Discussing ‘Depravity’ Of Hamas Attacks

National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby was shaken by the time he spoke to CNN’s Jake Tapper after a full day of discussing the horror of the Hamas surprise attacks on cable news.

Kirby was caught up with the emotion of the tragic events unfolding in Israel when asked by Tapper for insight.

“I, uh, I— sorry. It’s very— excuse me. It’s very difficult to look at these images, Jake, and the human cost. These are human beings. They’re family members, they’re friends, they’re loved ones, cousins, brothers, sisters. Yeah, it’s difficult and I apologize,” Kirby said.

Later in the show, Tapper aired a clip of the moment and defended the former ambassador’s raw emotion on display. “Of course, he has nothing to apologize for,” Tapper said. “Some of the images I was referring to had to deal with elderly people at a bus stop who had been slaughtered. Young women taken hostage, their pants filled with blood presumably because of being repeatedly raped.”

Tapper introduced CNN’s Nic Robertson, who was also having a tough time processing what he’d seen at a bomb shelter where young people had run to escape.

“Jake, I was hoping we might talk— I’m hit emotionally by listening to the testimony of the people that you were talking to just there because we’ve been there in Re’im, and witnessed firsthand what I think they’re talking about, the video images where people had come out, those young partygoers at the music festival there, had run away from Hamas who were just murdering and slaughtering them in the fields as they ran away,” Robertson said before discussing details of the atrocities.

“Being there, I’m trying to be professional and I’m trying to tell a story and bear witness to the barbarity and the callous, cruel, calculated, cold-blooded killing that Hamas was ripping on those poor, innocent young people,” he said.

Watch the clip above via CNN.