CNN bans conservative writer after ‘beeper’ comment to Muslim commentator

recent YORK — CNN has banned conservative writer Ryan Gidursky from the network following a contentious on-air trade where he told panelist Mehdi Hasan that “I aspiration your beeper doesn’t leave off.”

“Did you just declare 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 “information 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 talk devolved into back-and-forth bickering after Gidursky said to Hasan, a commentator and founder of the media business 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 shatter, 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 talk 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 leave until a highly contested and contentious Election Day that reflects the country’s political and cultural fissures.

Despite that fragmentation, Phillip said that “we can have conversations about what is happening in this country without resorting to the lowest … benevolent 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 remain 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 view what CNN stands for.”

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