NEW YORK (AP) — CNN has banned conservative writer Ryan Gidursky from the network following a contentious on-air exchange where he told panelist Mehdi Hasan that “I hope your beeper doesn’t go off.”
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“Did you just say I should die?” Hasan said, responding to Gidursky’s apparent reference to September’s attack where pagers used by hundreds of Hezbollah members in Lebanon and Syria exploded simultaneously. The attack was widely believed to be carried out by Israel.
Hasan and Gidursky were on a panel on “News Night” Monday night, talking about Donald Trump’s rally at Madison Square Garden, where speakers made a variety of racist comments and referred to Puerto Rico as a “floating island of garbage.” The panel discussion devolved into back-and-forth bickering after Gidursky said to Hasan, a commentator and founder of the media company Zeteo, that “you’ve been called an anti-Semite more than anyone else at this table.”
Host Abby Phillip said that Gidursky’s beeper comment was “completely out of pocket” and he apologized. But after a commercial break, he was gone.
Philip apologized to Hasan and to viewers. She said Gidursky, author of the book “They’re Not Listening: How the Elites Created the National Populist Revolution,” had crossed a line.
CNN was having a heated discussion about the Trump rally, where the racist and other demeaning language was a sign of how tensions are coming to a boil with only a week to go until a highly contested and contentious Election Day that reflects the nation’s political and cultural fissures.
You can stay on CNN if you falsely call every Republican a Nazi and have taken money from Qatar-funded media. Apparently you can't go on CNN if you make a joke. I'm glad America gets to see what CNN stands for.
— Ryan James Girdusky (@RyanGirdusky) October 29, 2024
Despite that fragmentation, Phillip said that “we can have conversations about what is happening in this country without resorting to the lowest … kind of discourse.”
CNN, saying there is “zero room for racism or bigotry at CNN or on our air,” said that Gidursky would not be allowed back on the network.
Gidursky responded in a post on X: “You can stay on CNN if you falsely call every Republican a Nazi” but apparently can’t “if you make a joke. I’m glad America gets to see what CNN stands for.”
Lol lmaseh it was a good line. And no, the joke wasn’t that that dummy Hasan should die. It was that Hasan is Hezbollah.
But it’s ok to shoot an orthodox Jewish person on the way to Shul and NOT CHARGE A MUSLIM WITH A HATE CRIME
Lies lies and more lies. Everyone heard him say he hopes his beeper DOESN’T go off. This man should be reinstated. Disgusting!!!!
But they kept an anti semitic moslem that calls for death of Jews. Why anyone watch’s that rag is beyond me
So Medi Hassan can call Ryan Gidursky a Nazi, but if Ryan Gidursky responds that Medi Hassan is Hezbollah (which is kind of true) he gets banned. Leftist logic.
On CNN you can only say Trump is Hitler
So much for free speech.
he should not have been apologized
I am personally offended by the insinuation that Mhedi Hassan is one of those low level beeper guys. The big boys in Hezbollah didn’t have those, and Medhi is pretty high up there.
I am personally offended by the insinuation that Mhedi Hassan is one of those low level beeper guys. High ranking officials like Mehdi have better equipment than that.
The guy is a schmuck for making such a violent comment. CNN did the right thing.