CNN severs ties with Jeffrey Lord over Nazi salute tweet

NEW YORK - An ill-advised tweet has led to the removal of another CNN personality.

The cable news network fired contributor Jeffrey Lord, a staunch supporter of President Donald Trump, on Thursday after he tweeted “Sieg Heil!” to Angelo Carusone, the president of Media Matters, the liberal media watchdog group.

“Nazi salutes are indefensible,” a CNN representative said in a statement. “Jeffrey Lord is no longer with the network.”

Lord directed the tweet with the phrase used as a greeting in Nazi Germany during an exchange with Carusone on Twitter.

The pundit came under fire in April for describing Trump as “the Martin Luther King of health care.”

Lord was a relatively obscure conservative writer who served in the Reagan administration before he became a frequent talking head on CNN during the 2016 presidential campaign. He was an unwavering supporter of Trump during the campaign for the Republican nomination and appeared frequently since.

Lord's ouster marks the third time this year social media activity has gotten CNN on-air personnel pushed out the door.

The network cut ties with comedian Kathy Griffin after she posted a photo of herself holding up a bloody severed head resembling Trump. Griffin had co-hosted CNN's New Year's Eve coverage with its star anchor Anderson Cooper.

Reza Aslan's CNN series “Believer” was canceled after the author posted a tweet that used a crude term for fecal matter to describe the president.