NEW YORK (AP) โ CNN has banned conservative writer Ryan Girdusky from the network following a contentious on-air exchange in which he told panelist Mehdi Hasan that โI hope your beeper doesnโt go off.โ
โDid you just say I should die?โ Hasan said.
He was responding to Girduskyโs apparent reference to Septemberโsย attacks where pagersย and walkie-talkies used by hundreds of Hezbollah members in Lebanon and Syria exploded simultaneously, killing 39. The attack was widely believed to be carried out by Israel.
Hasan and Girdusky were on a panel on โNews Nightโ Monday night, talking about Donald Trumpโs rally at Madison Square Garden, where speakers made a variety of racist comments and referred to Puerto Rico as a โfloating island of garbage.โ The panel discussion devolved into back-and-forth bickering after Girdusky said to Hasan, a commentator and founder of the media company Zeteo, that โyouโve been called an anti-Semite more than anyone else at this table.โ
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Host Abby Phillip said that Girduskyโs beeper comment was โcompletely out of pocketโ and he apologized. But after a commercial break, he was gone.
Philip apologized to Hasan and to viewers. She said Girdusky, author of the book โTheyโre Not Listening: How the Elites Created the National Populist Revolution,โ 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 nationโs political and cultural fissures.
Despite that fragmentation, Phillip said that โwe can have conversations about what is happening in this country without resorting to the lowest โฆ kind of discourse.โ
CNN, saying there is โzero room for racism or bigotry at CNN or on our air,โ said that Girdusky would not be allowed back on the network.
Girdusky responded in a post on X: โYou can stay on CNN if you falsely call every Republican a Naziโ but apparently canโt โif you make a joke. Iโm glad America gets to see what CNN stands for.โ
