CNN bans conservative writer after ‘beep’ comment on Muslim commentator

NEW YORK (AP) – CNN has suspended conservative writer Ryan Gidursky from the network after a contentious on-air exchange in which he told panelist Mehdi Hasan that “I hope your beeper doesn’t go off.”

“Did you just say I was going to 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 have been 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 series of racist comments and referred to Puerto Rico as a “floating island of garbage.” The panel discussion devolved into a back-and-forth argument after Gidursky told 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 Gidursky’s beeper comment was “completely out of line” 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 had a heated discussion about the Trump rally, where the racist and other derogatory language was a sign of how tensions are boiling with just a week to go until a highly contested and contentious Election Day that reflects the nation’s political and cultural fissures.

Despite this fragmentation, Phillip said that “we can have conversations about what’s happening in this country without resorting to the lowest … form of discourse.”

CNN, which said there is “zero place for racism or bigotry on CNN or on our air,” said 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 all Republicans Nazis,” but apparently can’t “if you’re making a joke. I’m glad America can see what CNN stands for .”

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David Bauder writes about media for AP. Follow him at http://x.com/dbauder.