But a second CNN-er, who strenuously disagreed with Lord on the air during prime-time panel discussions on which he frequently prompted eye-rolling and outrage, had a different reaction to the dismissal.
“I felt bad,” this person said, “because Jeffrey Lord is such a nice guy. Everybody likes him. He’s an amiable, jolly old fellow. He’s infuriating in his defenses of Trump but he doesn’t come from an alt-right place like Mike Cernovich or Milo Yiannopoulos. I’m sure it was said in jest.”
A third-CNNer agreed that Lord is likable, but that he has become increasingly toxic on camera as Trump’s presidency has progressed.
“I think that at a certain point you can cross over from being an advocate and making reasonable arguments into just pandering to the ugliest of instincts,” this person said, “and Jeffrey unfortunately had been dabbling in that more and more, and had been getting uglier and more crude, almost as if he had to keep finding a bigger dog whistle. Obviously he went too far.”
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