CNN has permanently banned a pro-Trump guest with ties to prominent white supremacists it for some reason brought on to defend the racist rally Donald Trump hosted Sunday in New York, after he lobbed a vicious, on-air insult with implied violence against former MSNBC anchor Mehdi Hasan.
“There is zero room for racism of bigotry at CNN or on our air,” CNN said in a statement soon after. “We aim to foster thoughtful conversations and debate including between people who profoundly disagree with each other in order to explore important issues and promote mutual understanding. But we will not allow guests to be demeaned or for the line of civility to be crossed. Ryan Girdusky will not be welcomed back at our network.”
The moment happened during CNN NewsNight, when right wing commentator Ryan Girdusky grew annoyed at the criticism of the aforementioned rally. Girdusky, who earlier in his career was a writer for white supremacist and neo-Nazi Richard Spencer, complained falsely that critics called literally anyone at the rally “Hitler” or a “fascist.”
The other guests on the show pushed back against this, and during this Hasan said, “My problem is, I get it, nobody wants to be called Nazis, it’s very inflammatory. But if you don’t want to be called Nazis, stop doing [things associated with Nazis],” he said.
Notably, in addition to Spencer, Girdusky also once wrote for the founder of the racist Proud Boy movement.
“You got called an antisemite more than anyone else at this table,” Girdusky countered. It’s unclear why, and the remark was unrelated to the discussion.
“Yeah, by you,” Hasan shot back.
“By me? I never called you an antisemite. I mean, I’m not sitting here saying-” Girdusky replied.
“I’m in support of the Palestinians so I’m used to it,” Hasan countered, at which point Girdusky spat out, “Yeah, well, I hope your beeper doesn’t go off.”
This was of course a reference to the assassination of several Hamas figures in coordinated attacks in September that included somehow inducing beepers to explode. The attacks killed 13 people, including some children, and wounded about 4,000 others. No one has officially claimed responsibility for the attack, though it’s widely believed it was an Israeli operation.
At that, the discussion became chaotic as Hasan and other guests called out Girdusky, who offered what amounts to begrudging apologies that the other panelists didn’t believe.
Watch the exchange below:
After the show returned from a commercial break, both Hasan and Girdusky were no longer on-air.
In a video posted to her social media accounts, NewsNight host Abby Philip clarified that Hasan was not kicked off the show, suggesting he left on his own accord, and said he’ll be welcome back in the future.
“I’m sure everyone has seen what happened on the show tonight. I just wanted to address one quick thing. As you may have seen, Ryan was asked to leave the show, and we’ve put out a statement saying that he’s not welcome back on our air. There is a line here on this program, and it was crossed. But I want to be clear as well that we did not ask Mehdi to not come back. In fact, we really wanted him to come back and finish the show,” Philip said.
“We had a lot to talk to him about, and we really hope that he’ll join us again soon. But for those of you who are wondering why he didn’t come back, I just want to be super clear that that was not in any way because we didn’t want him back at all, and I won’t speak for him, but I just wanted to make sure that you all knew that that was not what happened there.”
For his part, Girdusky refused to apologize and further called Hasan out in a statement posted to X after the incident became widely known.
