Donald Trump praises CNN commentator fired for tweeting Nazi salute as 'a source of truth'

US President calls Jeffrey Lord 'great' during speech on tax reform in Pennsylvania

Donald Trump speaks about tax reform during an event in Pennsylvania (AP)

Donald Trump has praised a political pundit fired by CNN for using a Nazi salute.

Jeffrey Lord sparked uproar in August after using Twitter to post “Sieg Heil” in response to criticism from a liberal activist.

The US President, during a speech on tax reform in Pennsylvania on Wednesday evening, said the “great Jeffrey Lord” – who was presumed to be in attendance – had been on “fake news CNN for a long time”.

“He was one of my few sources of truth. Thank you, Jeffrey, for being here. That’s a great honour.”

Mr Lord, one of CNN’s few in-house Trump supporters, was sacked hours after sending the offensive tweet, with a spokesperson for the news channel branding the message “indefensible”.

The 66-year-old failed to delete the tweet and defended his actions, saying he was mocking Nazis and fascists.

“I'm mocking people who are posing a serious threat to the American free press. That's what I'm mocking,” he said. “I love CNN, but I feel they are caving to bullies here.”

Mr Trump had previously come to Mr Lord’s defence at a rally in Arizona. “They fired Jeffrey Lord. Poor Jeffrey,” he said. "Jeffrey Lord. I guess he was getting a little bit fed up and was probably fighting back too hard and they said ‘We gotta get [him] out of here’.”

The conservative commentator had been in a long-running dispute with Angelo Carusone, president of Media Matters for America, a left-leaning US media watchdog.

Branding the organisation "Media Matters Fascists”, Mr Lord accused it in a column of trying to “shut down speech they don’t like” following a campaign urging advertisers to boycott Fox News TV host Sean Hannity.

In a tweet to Mr Carusone, he misspelt his name as “Corusone”, prompting the Media Matters chief to reply: “Your headline has a mistake in it. Why do you expect anyone to take you seriously when you don't take yourself seriously?”

Mr Lord replied, “Sieg Heil!”