A Milwaukee-based CBS affiliate has dismissed one of its weather presenters after she reportedly called Elon Musk a Nazi on social media, over a gesture the tech billionaire made during an inauguration rally for US President Donald Trump.
WDJT-TV (Channel 58), where meteorologist Sam Kuffel had worked since 2019, has confirmed her departure but provided no official explanation in an internal memo to or public comments, according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
While the station described the matter as a “personal issue,” Kuffel was reportedly dismissed one day after commenting on Musk’s gesture on her Instagram account.
The TV channel has removed Kuffel’s bio from its website and no longer mentions her in its weather section, but retains articles written by her. Her Instagram account has been set to private, but screenshots purportedly capturing her posts are available online. She has not commented publicly on the incident.
Before her tenure at WDJT-TV, the journalist worked at WAOW-TV (Channel 9) in Wausau, after graduating from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee with a degree in atmospheric science.
The Anti-Defamation League, a US-based pro-Israeli group which monitors anti-Semitism and hate speech, has described Musk’s gesture as “awkward” but did not say it was a Nazi salute. Similarly, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is the subject of an International Criminal Court warrant on charges related to genocide, has tweeted in support of the X owner, declaring him to be “a friend of Israel.”
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The leader of the free world everybody.
The world arbiter of freedom and goodness
Is there even a leader of a free world any more? When the US went fascist it was Germany, but they've been having issues too lately.
Xi Jinping
I'm afraid a country can't be totalitarian and free at the same time.
Chinese people consider their country to be a functional democracy with massive popular support for its policies and the way it has improved their lives, so "totalitarian" is a lie. Unless that's just what you call it when billionaires get executed for financial crimes?
And people say hexbear is all tankies!
Weird how libs never have anything but vague accusations of tankie and totalitarian while actual Marxist-Leninist governments have history's most successful poverty eradication campaign
The whole free world was a bullshit narrative to begin with.
Leader of a divied up and purchased world doesn't have the same ring to it. It has a ring of truth instead
The leader of divided and failing colonizer nations seems more accurate.
Very true.