Apanelist was kicked off CNN anchor Abby Phillip’s show on Monday after he told another guest, “I hope your beeper doesn’t go off” while discussing the rhetoric spread at former President Donald Trump’s New York City rally on Sunday.
The comment was made by conservative commentator Ryan Girdusky, founder of the 1776 Project political action committee, toward Mehdi Hasan, a progressive commentator who is of Indian descent and a Muslim.
Trump’s event in Madison Square Garden received immense backlash after several speakers made inflammatory or racist comments on stage. The controversy follows reports last week of Trump’s former chief of staff, John Kelly, and others who served in the Trump administration who said that the former president repeatedly praised Nazi Germany dictator Adolf Hitler.
Girdusky said during a heated roundtable discussion on CNN NewsNight with Abby Phillip that “the media” has called “everyone who attended” Trump’s rally “Hitler” and “a fascist,” and came out in support of the former president.
Phillip interrupted Girdusky’s comments, and said, “That did not happen.” Hasan then commented on Trump’s rally, and attacked the comments made by speakers like comedian Tony Hinchcliffe and others, which he said were using the “language of the far right.”
“My problem is, I get it, nobody wants to be called Nazis. It’s very inflammatory,” Hasan said, adding, “if you don’t want to be called Nazis, stop” hurling rhetoric.
Girdusky shot back toward Hasan: “You’ve been called an antisemite more than anyone at this table,” to which Hasan said, “By people like you … I’m in support of the Palestinians, I’m used to it.”
Girdusky rejected that he had ever called Hasan an antisemite, adding: “Yeah, well, I hope your beeper doesn’t go off.”
