The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette's cartoonist, Rob Rodgers, says he was fired after 25-years on the job for his scathing portrayals of President Donald Trump.

Rogers said he saw his termination coming, after his last six cartoons were spiked from publication.

His cartoons were often harsh critiques of the president's agendas, policies and politics.

Rogers final cartoon that made print was of a heavy-set man representing America, impaled on a steel girder with 'trade war' written on it. The American is waving the flag with a voice bubble saying: 'Take that, Canada, Mexico and Europe.'

One of Rob Rogers' recent illustrations that did not make print was this one depicting presumably illegal immigrants with their child being snatched away by Trump

Rogers (pictured) was a Pulitzer Prize finalist in 1991 for his illustrations of then President Bill Clinton's scandalous affair with White House intern Monica Lewinsky

A recently spiked cartoon depicts a 'caution' street sign, with Trump chasing after illegal immigrants and snatching their child from behind in a commentary on the administration's 'zero tolerance' policy on illegal immigration.

In an editorial piece with the New York Times, Rogers said another indication of his eventual demise at the paper was an unusual conversation he had with his new boss a few months ago about changing the terms under which he had been working all these years.

'When I had lunch with my new boss a few months ago,' he wrote, 'he informed me that the paper's publisher believed the editorial cartoonist was akin to an editorial writer, and that his views should reflect the philosophy of the newspaper. That was a new one to me. I was trained in a tradition in which editorial cartoonists are the live wires of a publication – as one former colleague put it, the "constant irritant".'

In an interview with The Guardian, Rogers argues that suppressing voices over a specific subject is particularly dangerous.

'Suppressing voices in any situation is bad,' Rogers said. 'You want to have as many voices as you can and they are starting to have only one voice of the paper, and I think that goes against what a free press is all about – especially when silencing that voice is because of the president.'

His ouster at the long standing publication, for which Rogers was a finalist for the Pulitzer prize in 1991 for cartoons that targeted then President Bill Clinton's Oval Office escapades with intern Monica Lewinsky, was met with outrage from within the journalistic community, as well as the Mayor of Pittsburgh.

Pittsburgh Mayor Bill Peduto released a statement about Rogers being shown the door at the Post-Gazette. He said: 'The move today by the leadership of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette to fire Rob Rogers after he drew a series of cartoons critical of President Trump is disappointing, and sends the wrong message about press freedoms in a time when they are under siege.'

'This is precisely the time,' the mayor, who has also been a target of Rogers' illustrations, added, 'when the constitutionally protected free press, including critics like Rob Rogers, should be celebrated and supported, and not fired for doing their jobs. This decision, just one day after the president of the United States said the news media is ''our country's biggest enemy,'' sets a low standard in the 232-year history of the newspaper.'

On Saturday the publisher of the Post-Gazette defended the paper's decision to fire Rogers.

'He's just become too angry for his health or for his own good,' John Block, the publisher and editor-in-chief of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, told POLITICO. 'He's obsessed with Trump.

'I wanted clever and funny instead of angry and mean.'

Rogers was fired on Thursday. He wrote an opinion piece in the New York Times in which he talks about the dangers of 'silencing a voice is because of the president'

The Mayor of Pittsburgh also decried the publisher's decision to fire Rogers, despite being a target of the cartoonist's illustrations as well

Rogers countered Block's narrative as to why he was fired, saying he simply covers the most urgent news of the day, which is typically Trump, and not about any presumed obsession with the president.

'If you look through my work, you will see that many cartoons had nothing to do with Trump,' he said, responding to POLITICO's request for comment.

'If I drew Trump more often than Block would have liked, it was because I base my cartoons on the most urgent topics at hand. Sadly, Trump provides that fodder every day.

'Mr. Block mistakes a strong opinion, particularly one he doesn't agree with, as anger. I see it as my job to critique injustices. I don't see that as anger, nor do many readers or fellow journalists.'