To: Jeff Zucker, President of CNN
CNN: Take racist Trump backer Jeffrey Lord off the air
Jeffrey Lord has repeatedly appeared on CNN on behalf of Donald Trump, peddling outlandish, inflammatory, and racist claims from the fake existence of a militant Islamic training camp in upstate New York to the notion that MoveOn.org is "the new Ku Klux Klan." Jeffrey Lord's statements are not legitimate political commentary. It's time for CNN to stop inviting him on the air.
Why is this important?
Since last year, CNN has repeatedly invited Jeffrey Lord to appear in political commentary segments on behalf of Donald Trump. In those appearances, Lord has routinely made absurd and outright false claims.
After Donald Trump made disparaging comments about fellow candidate Carly Fiorina's face, Lord defended Trump saying he was talking about her "persona."
After a man at a Trump rally in New Hampshire asked the candidate about Muslim "training camps," Lord showed up on CNN to claim that he personally knew of such a training camp in a town called Islamberg in upstate New York. These claims have been thoroughly debunked. A CBS profile of the town described it as "the picture of a traditional and tranquil Islamic community — not of immigrants, but of mostly second- or third-generation Americans hailing from cities like New York."
After Donald Trump tepidly and belatedly distanced himself from an endorsement by David Duke, Lord nonsensically defended him on CNN by claiming that the KKK was a leftist, progressive organization.
And now American Prospect has published a new piece by Lord in which he claims that MoveOn.org is "the new Klu Klux Klan" and naming Occupy Wall Street, Black Lives Matter, and MoveOn.org, among others, as racists. To compare young black, latino and muslim students protesting Donald Trump's hate speech to a terrorist group that murdered thousands of black Americans is simply horrendous.
This man has no place on network television. CNN should do the right thing and refuse to invite Jeffrey Lord to appear again.
After Donald Trump made disparaging comments about fellow candidate Carly Fiorina's face, Lord defended Trump saying he was talking about her "persona."
After a man at a Trump rally in New Hampshire asked the candidate about Muslim "training camps," Lord showed up on CNN to claim that he personally knew of such a training camp in a town called Islamberg in upstate New York. These claims have been thoroughly debunked. A CBS profile of the town described it as "the picture of a traditional and tranquil Islamic community — not of immigrants, but of mostly second- or third-generation Americans hailing from cities like New York."
After Donald Trump tepidly and belatedly distanced himself from an endorsement by David Duke, Lord nonsensically defended him on CNN by claiming that the KKK was a leftist, progressive organization.
And now American Prospect has published a new piece by Lord in which he claims that MoveOn.org is "the new Klu Klux Klan" and naming Occupy Wall Street, Black Lives Matter, and MoveOn.org, among others, as racists. To compare young black, latino and muslim students protesting Donald Trump's hate speech to a terrorist group that murdered thousands of black Americans is simply horrendous.
This man has no place on network television. CNN should do the right thing and refuse to invite Jeffrey Lord to appear again.