On Thursday, President Donald Trump lost one of his most ardent television defenders after CNN fired commentator Jeffrey Lord.

In a sarcastic tweet which used the Nazi term "Sieg Heil," Lord accused Media Matters for America president Angelo Carusone of being a fascist for allegedly leading boycotts to get various conservative media figures fired from their jobs.

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Since his firing, Lord has vowed to go on a "no apologies tour" to tell his side of the story and slam his former employer.

"It's a matter of principle," Lord told PennLive. "The idea that people who use Nazi fascist tactics should be left alone to fly their trade is unacceptable."

He appears to have at least one key ally in that regard, White House adviser Steve Bannon who called Lord while he was being interviewed by a Pennsylvania newspaper. According to reporter Candy Woodall, Bannon told Lord to "keep fighting," an expression which appeared to make the ousted CNN commentator "noticeably more confident."

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The ousted commentator has refused to apologize for the tweet that got him fired or to retract it.

"You're not supposed to make fun of Nazis? I don't think so," Lord told Woodall. "I do not ever intend to be quiet. If I had to do it all over again, I would." That's a bit ironic since his posting appears to have been just an angry reaction to a tweet from Carusone which pointed out that Lord had misspelled his name.

Several conservative commentators were quick to come to Lord's defense.

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In a statement to Politico, a Fox News representative said the channel had no plans to hire Lord after his release by CNN.

Lefty political commentators responded mostly with the idea that CNN ought to have fired Lord long ago and that the network had already revealed itself to have no standards for Trump defenders.

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Mediaite managing editor Colby Hall wrote an entire column arguing that "CNN was right to fire Jeffrey Lord — but did so for the wrong reasons."

Earlier this week, one of Lord's former pro-Trump colleagues, Kayleigh McEnany, also parted ways with the network to join up with the president's re-election campaign as the host of a weekly online advertorial relaying "real news" about the administration.