CNN apologizes for conservative panelist's pager comment to Mehdi Hasan | US News

CNN has apologized to its viewers after a panelist on its NewsNight show made derogatory comments in which he suggested that a fellow guest on the show, broadcaster Mehdi Hasan, was a terrorist.

Ryan James Girdusky, a conservative commentator, told Hasan, a U.S. Guardian columnist and former MSNBC host who is Muslim, that he hopes his “beeper doesn't go off,” in apparent reference to Israel's attacks on Hezbollah fighters in the United States Lebanon alludes to exploding pagers last month. The wave of coordinated explosions killed 12 people and injured thousands.

“Did your guest just say on live television that I should be killed?” Hasan asked the show's host, Abby Phillip.

After a commercial break, Phillip apologized to Hasan and viewers on air and said Girdusky had been removed from the show.

“I would like to apologize to Mehdi Hasan for what was said at this table. It was completely unacceptable,” she said. “I would like to apologize to the viewers at home.”

In a subsequent statement, CNN said there was “no room for racism or bigotry at CNN or on our show” and that Girdusky would “not be welcome back on our network.” Hasan retweeted the statement on X.

Earlier in their heated exchange, Hasan had said that if people on the far right “don't want to be called Nazis, then stop saying that, stop saying that.” Girdusky interjected, saying Hasan has been called an anti-Semitic “more than anyone else at this table.”

After Hasan said he was used to being labeled an anti-Semite for his support of the Palestinian people, Girdusky said, “Well, I hope your beeper doesn't go off.” He attempted to apologize amidst persuasion, parsing his comment to justify that he thought Hasan had said he supported Hamas.

However, in a later post on X, Girdusky seemed to take a more antagonistic approach. “You can stay at CNN when you falsely call every Republican a Nazi and have taken money from Qatari-funded media,” he said. “Apparently you can’t go on CNN if you make a joke. I’m glad America sees what CNN stands for.”