CNN is reporting that it has severed ties with commentator Jeffery Lord on Thursday after he tweeted “Sieg Heil!” at a liberal activist on Twitter.

Lord, a columnist for conservative magazine The American Spectator, tweeted the Nazi victory salute at Angelo Carusone, president of the liberal group Media Matters for America.

“Nazi salutes are indefensible,” a CNN spokesperson said, according to the network. “Jeffrey Lord is no longer with the network.”



The controversial tweet by Lord gained attention after several publications reported it and Carusone took a screenshot and tweeted it at CNN, asking for the network to comment on “on air talent issuing (in serious and non-ironic way) Nazi victory salutes.”

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In the opinion piece that eventually led to his ouster from CNN, Lord took issue with a Media Matters campaign to get Fox's Sean Hannity fired from his network.



Media Matters urged its supporter to pressure advdertisers on Hannity’s program to withdraw their support. Lord argued in his piece that this was a “fascist game” and an effort to end Hannity’s “free speech.”

Lord, 61, was signed as a CNN contributor in early 2016 to serve as a staunch Trump supporter. The author and political strategist often was a foil to other segment panel guests on the network, generating headlines and viral clips in the process.