Jeffrey Lord, the talking head who defends everything that President Trump says or does (no matter how outrageous), has been dismissed from the CNN airwaves, and he shall antagonize Van Jones no more. Ever the contrarian, Lord once made light of Trump’s possible use of The Star of David to signal corruption on behalf of Hillary Clinton, and his current offense runs along the same anti-Semitic wavelength.
CNN decided enough was enough after the below exchange involving Media Matters’ Angelo Carusone. For a reason comprehensible only to himself, Lord decided to drop a Nazi salute — “Sieg Heil!” — as a rebuttal:
CNN Money published a simple statement after Lord’s exit:
“Nazi salutes are indefensible,” a CNN spokesperson said in a statement. “Jeffrey Lord is no longer with the network.”
Lord was not immediately reachable for comment. Earlier in the day, he defended his tweet by saying he was “mocking a fascist.”
Earlier on Thursday, Lord published an American Spectator column, in which he had written, “This is America, Angelo. Not Fascist Italy, Nazi Germany or Communist Russia.” In the piece, he called out Carusone for trying to push Sean Hannity off the air at Fox News (in part by attempting to organize boycotts of advertisers). Lord characterized these tactics as a “fascist game.”
Carusone then trolled Lord by pointing out his headline error and added, “Why do you expect anyone to take you seriously when you don’t take yourself seriously.” So, Lord dropped the “Sieg Heil!” And that’s all he wrote.
A few hours prior to CNN’s announcement, Carusone tweeted a statement to ask CNN to stop giving Lord a “free pass.” It sounds like that pass has expired.
A bunch of people have asked if Media Matters is calling for Jeffrey Lord to be fired for issuing the Nazi victory salute. Here's my answer: pic.twitter.com/60DmvwTVWG
— Angelo Carusone (@GoAngelo) August 10, 2017
(Via CNN Money)