MAGA Pundit Banned from CNN After Racist Remark to Muslim Co-Panelist Mehdi Hasan: 'Hope Your Beeper Doesn't Go Off'

• CNN has banned MAGA pundit Ryan Girdusky from appearing on its network after he directed a comment at a Muslim journalist suggesting that he was a part of the terrorist group Hezbollah
• Gidursky told Zeteo News founder and editor-in-chief Mehdi Hasan, “I hope your beeper doesn’t go off” after Hasan said he supported Palestine while on-air
• “There is zero room for racism or bigotry at CNN or on our air,” CNN said in its statement following the incident
  

CNN has banned MAGA pundit Ryan Girdusky from appearing on its network after he directed a comment at a Muslim journalist suggesting that he was a part of the terrorist group Hezbollah.

CNN issued a statement saying that Girdusky would not “be welcomed back at our network” after he was captured live on-air at a roundtable hosted by Abby Phillip on Monday, Oct. 28, telling Zeteo News founder and editor-in-chief Mehdi Hasan, “I hope your beeper doesn’t go off” after Hasan said he supported Palestine. Footage from the broadcast was subsequently shared on X (formerly Twitter).

The comment is a reference to an Israeli attack in which pagers exploded killing members of the Hezbollah militant group in Lebanon last month, according to NBC News. 

This prompted Hasan to respond, "Did you just say I should die? You just said I should be killed.” He then questioned if Girdusky was a “racist, violent person inciting violence against” him. After he was chided for his comment, Girdusky apologized and said that he “thought” Hasan “said Hamas.”

“There is zero room for racism or bigotry at CNN or on our air,” CNN said in its statement following the incident, shared by Phillip on X. “We aim to foster thoughtful conversations and debate including between people who profoundly disagree with each other 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.”

Following his comments, Girdusky did not appear in the show's next segment. Phillip explained that he was “asked to leave the show,” in a video alongside the same statement. Hasan was also notably absent, though Phillip clarified in her video that it “was not in any way because we didn’t want him back” and shared that he was invited back on the show.

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She issued an apology to Hasan that was shared on X and also directed to viewers at home while on-air for “what was said” at the roundtable, saying, “There is a line that was crossed there, and it‘s not acceptable to me.” 

”We want discussion. We want people who disagree with each other, to talk to each other. But when you cross the line of a complete lack of civility, that is not going to happen here on this show," she noted.

“It‘s a heated time,” Phillip continued. “We‘re in the middle of a political season. We are eight days from a presidential election, but we can have conversations about what is happening in this country without resorting to the lowest of the lowest kind of discourse.”

Girdusky has since responded to the incident, saying on X that his comments were meant to be taken as a “joke.”

“You can stay on CNN if you falsely call every Republican a Nazi and have taken money from Qatar-funded media. Apparently you can't go on CNN if you make a joke,” he wrote. “I'm glad America gets to see what CNN stands for.”

Hasan has not yet issued a statement of his own on social media, but re-shared Phillip’s post and CNN’s statement about the show.