CNN boots commentator Ryan Girdusky for Hezbollah pager joke

Conservative commentator and 1776 Project PAC founder Ryan Girdusky found his punditry gig at CNN to be short-lived after the network kicked him off air Monday for making a joke about Hezbollah’s exploding pagers.

Girdusky was sparring with two progressive co-panelists, Ashley Allison and Mehdi Hasan, on CNN Newsnight over whether Trump’s rally at Madison Square Garden could be reasonably equated to the 1939 Nazi rally at the same venue. Girdusky asserted that Democrats were smearing Trump’s supporters by accusing them of attending a Nazi rally, to which Hasan replied, “If you don’t want to be called Nazis, stop doing — stop saying,” presumably meaning to end that sentence with “Nazi things.” 

Girdusky pointed out that by Hasan’s standard, he is an antisemite since people call him that quite frequently. Hasan quipped back, “I’m supportive of the Palestinians so I’m used to it.” 

Then came the bomb. Girdusky retorted, “I hope your beeper doesn’t go off,” referring to a recent attack on terrorist group Hezbollah that saw hundreds of operatives taken out by an exploding pager attack coordinated by Israel.

The panel fully devolved and during the break, Girdusky was asked to leave the show. Hasan also stormed off after the tense on-air moment. When they came back from break, host Abby Phillip addressed the elephant in the room by noting that Girdusky was no longer on the show and would not be invited back. She also apologized to Hasan.

CNN further released a statement, saying, “There is zero room for racism or bigotry at CNN… We will not allow guests to be demeaned or for the line of civility to be crossed.” They did not release a similar pearl-clutching statement over Hasan’s insistence that Trump supporters were behaving like Nazis.

The aftermath featured Girdusky’s supporters and Hasan’s supporters arguing over who committed the worse offense. Team Hasan claimed falsely that Girdusky “worked for Richard Spencer,” attacked him for appearing on VICE News and Proud Boys founder Gavin McInnes’s show and accused his political action committee of existing to elect “extremist” candidates to school boards. Girdusky’s fans said that Hasan had it coming by effectively calling Republicans “Nazis” and pointed to his history of being funded by Qatar, which backs extremist groups like Hamas, and his sympathetic tone to terrorists including Osama bin Laden.

At the end of the day, Girdusky was banned from CNN after just a handful of appearances. But Cockburn admires his attitude about the whole escapade: “I’m not a victim; I said what I said. I own it. Some people liked it; some people hated it. I don’t care. No one will remember it in a moment.”