A conservative commentator was given the boot from CNN in the middle of a show after a “completely unacceptable” attack on a fellow panelist.
“I hope your beeper doesn’t go off,” right-wing personality Ryan Girdusky told Mehdi Hasan after Hasan said he supports Palestinian people.
Last month, hundred of pagers held by suspected Hezbollah operatives across Lebanon exploded in an attack widely believed to have been carried out by Israel. At least 37 people were killed, including two children, and thousands were injured.
“Did you just say I should die?” Hasan asked in disbelief. “Did you just say I should be killed on live TV?”
“No, I did not say that,” Girdusky said.
“You said you hope my beeper doesn’t go off,” Hasan pointed out.
Girdusky asked Hasan if he supports Hamas.
“I said ‘Palestinians,’” Hasan said.
“Then I apologize, I apologize,” Girdusky said. “I thought he said Hamas, I apologize.”
“This is America in 2024,” Hasan said. “Forget the racism. It’s I should die.”
When Girdusky claimed he didn’t say that, Hasan pressed him to explain what he meant with the “beeper” comment:
After a commercial break, Girdusky was gone ― and host Abby Phillip issued an apology to Hasan as well as to CNN viewers.
“We want discussion. We want people who disagree with each other to talk to each other,” she said. “But when you cross the line of a complete lack of civility, that is not going to happen here on this show.”
She called for conversations “without resorting to the lowest of the lowest kinds of discourse.”
Critics called out Girdusky for the “vile” and “disgusting” attack on Hasan: