Mehdi Hasan Addresses Racist Beeper Comment CNN Panelist Made About Him
HuffPost
The journalist said it was the most stunned he's ever been in his career.
Political commentator Medhi Hasan has spoken out about Monday night’s CNN broadcast in which a conservative panelist on air with him implied he was a member of Hezbollah and supporter of Hamas.
Hasan, a British American journalist born to Indian Shia Muslim parents, said receiving the comment from fellow panelist Ryan Girdusky ― who has since been banned from the network ― was one of the most shocking experiences of his career.
“Never in my 25 years as a journalist and 15 years of doing live TV, have I been so stunned by what was said to me that I had to walk off set in the middle of a live show, as I did on Monday night on CNN,” Hasan, who runs the media company Zeteo, said in a video posted to social media.
The incident happened on Monday’s episode of “NewsNight With Abby Phillip” when Girdusky ― a pro-Donald Trump personality who’s made several recent appearances on the network ― said, “Yeah, well, I hope your beeper doesn’t go off,” after Hasan expressed support for Palestinians.
Last month, at least 37 people were killed and thousands injured after hundred of pagers possessed by suspected Hezbollah operatives in Lebanon spontaneously exploded. The attack is widely believed to have been carried out by Israel.
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