National Rifle Association spokeswoman Dana Loesch deleted Monday a 2010 tweet of hers that began to resurface late last week as other Twitter users accused Loesch of anti-Semitism.

The October 2010 tweet from Loesch read: "I bet Rick Sanchez was fired by a Jew."

Her tweet was in response to CNN's firing of the daytime anchor a day after he told a radio interviewer that Jon Stewart, who is Jewish, was a bigot and that “everybody that runs CNN is a lot like Stewart.”

Open gallery view Screen shot of NRA spokewoman Dana Loesch's 2010 tweet, which has been accused of being anti-Semitic, that was deleted on February 26, 2018 Credit: Screen shot

Twitter users, including comedian Sarah Silverman, began criticizing the tweet – to which Loesch defiantly responded “Still not apologizing,” before apparently deleting the tweet.

Silverman engaged Loesch in a Twitter exchange, writing, “Dana, is there context here bc this looks super duper no bones about it antisemitic and that can’t be true, can it?”

Loesch defended the original tweet, trying to turn the tables on accusations of anti-Semitism, writing Monday that, “Just a reminder. Still not apologizing for hoping a garbage bigot was fired by someone against whom he was bigoted in an epic form of poetic justice. Defend his nastiness all you want.”

However, Silverman (among others) was not buying it. Silverman shot back: “Hey y’all @DLoesch was making a joke about Rick Sanchez saying the Jews run the media. It was out of context and that’s the true context. Peace.” Another user, meanwhile, wrote, “If you want context, learn what antisemitism is before you dig yourself out by digging further into it.”

Other Twitter users were more forgiving, with one writing: “Dana, I know you were fuming at Sanchez, but the tweet by itself can easily be mistook. Can you take it down? Many of us understand both sides of the arguments.



“Please? For the sake of Peace?



“Shalom.”

Loesch continued to reply to critics on Twitter for almost an hour Monday night, replying some 40 times to different users “So you support Sanchez’s antisemitism. Got it,” or a variation of that sentence.

The resurfacing of the tweet comes while Loesch is defending gun rights across the U.S. media after the deadly February 14 school shooting in Parkland, Florida, that killed 17 students and staff.

Loesch has previously dived into similar hot water when she starred in ads targeting the New York Times and "elites." At one point in the ad, which showed people fighting police, breaking storefront glass and burning the American flag, Loesch threatened, "Consider this the shot across your proverbial bow. ... In short? We're coming for you."