One of the loudest and most obnoxious on-air supporters of Donald Trump finally went too far. Hours after CNN commentator Jeffrey Lord got the bright idea to tweet a Nazi slogan at a liberal media critic, CNN told Lord that his services were no longer needed.
Lord joined CNN in 2015 as the network’s first unabashedly pro-Trump commentator. Ever since, he has done and said a number of things that have had a lot of people wondering what CNN was thinking–or if the powers that be at that network were even thinking at all. This is a guy who has likened gun deaths to legalized abortion, claimed that there aren’t any people of color in this country, suggested that a neo-Nazi group was provoked into existence by Black Lives Matter, and likened the Congressional Black Caucus to the KKK.
And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Media Matters assembled a long list of Lord’s more offensive remarks prior to CNN hiring him. Apparently that list hurt Lord’s fee-fees, because he has been in a long-running feud with Media Matters and its president, Angelo Carusone.
Their latest spat began on Wednesday. In addition to his appearances on CNN, Lord is a columnist for The American Spectator. On Wednesday, he slammed Media Matters for turning up the heat on Fox News to fire his close friend, Sean Hannity. In this piece, Lord referred to Media Matters as a “fascist” group funded by George Soros that is trying to do to Hannity what it has done to conservatives for years.
Carusone took to Twitter to point out a glaring error in the article.
Hey Jeff. Article is bullshit and filled with lies. Soros gave us one donation one time…in 2010.
Why are you lying to your readers?
— Angelo Carusone (@GoAngelo) August 9, 2017
Rather than apologize, Lord responded in typical fashion.
So you gave it back?
— Jeff Lord (@realJeffreyLord) August 9, 2017
Carusone wasn’t amused.
What are you talking about? One donation, one time. How does that have anything to do with now?
— Angelo Carusone (@GoAngelo) August 9, 2017
You and your pals lie. You claim we're basically being bankrolled by a single donor. It's just demonstrably false. Won't stop you though.
— Angelo Carusone (@GoAngelo) August 9, 2017
Crickets here, huh? Predictable. And you'll go on to keep parroting this lie too, I bet. Because hey. Why not. Nothing matters apparently.
— Angelo Carusone (@GoAngelo) August 9, 2017
The next day, Lord responded with another column in which he claimed that exchange proved the “fascist spirit” that drove Carusone and the “Media Matters Fascists.” He tweeted the article to Carusone–but apparently misspelled his name before hitting the “publish” button.
@GoAngelo Now posted at @amspectator FYI https://t.co/5P2FujFBsL
— Jeff Lord (@realJeffreyLord) August 10, 2017
Carusone was quick to notice.
Your headline has a mistake in it. Why do you expect anyone to take you seriously when you don't take yourself seriously.
— Angelo Carusone (@GoAngelo) August 10, 2017
Rather than apologize for the mistake, Lord responded with this.
Sieg Heil!
— Jeff Lord (@realJeffreyLord) August 10, 2017
Needless to say, that didn’t play very well. The hashtag “#FireJeffreyLord” started trending heavily on Twitter.
In the face of withering criticism, Lord claimed that he was “mocking Nazis and Fascists,” and thus saw no reason to delete the tweet. Surely a graduate of Franklin & Marshall would have found a better way to do so than to tweet a Nazi salute.
Carusone wasn’t amused. He issued a blistering statement on Twitter questioning CNN’s standards.
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
Apparently CNN wasn’t amused either, because he was fired later that afternoon. According to New York Times media reporter Michael Grynbaum, Lord was driving from his home in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania to New York City when a CNN exec called to tell him the bad (good?) news.
Just talked to @realJeffreyLord. He was in his CNN town car on way from Harrisburg, PA to NYC when he got the call. The car turned around.
— Michael M. Grynbaum (@grynbaum) August 10, 2017
A CNN spokesperson stated simply, “Nazi salutes are indefensible.”
Lord later told CNN’s Brian Stelter that he thought CNN was “caving to bullies.” Frankly, it’s awfully hard to feel any sympathy for someone who reacts like that when someone simply points out that their name was misspelled in the headline.
It would have seemed that Lord’s next logical stop would have been Fox News. But NPR media reporter David Folkenflik reports that notion was quickly shot down.
Fox News tells me it will not be hiring Jeffrey Lord in the wake of his dismissal by CNN.
— David Folkenflik (@davidfolkenflik) August 10, 2017
So Fox News has some standards after all. After Howard Kurtz harrumphed that we shouldn’t believe Eric Bolling’s accusers because they haven’t come forward, we were starting to wonder. When an ardent Trump supporter goes too far even for Fox News, you know he’s done.
But that day should have come a lot sooner. Looking at some of Lord’s past work at the Spectator, you have to wonder why he was even hired at all–and why it took this tweet to finally get rid of him.
(featured image: screengrab courtesy CNN via Raw Story)