Well, that was fast: Rick Sanchez’s sharp tongue has driven the outspoken political pundit out of a cozy job.
On Friday, CNN fired anchor Rick Sanchez following a radio rant Thursday night, during which he called TV rival Jon Stewart a “bigot,” blamed CNN brass for discrimination against him, and insinuated that the media industry is controlled by “Jews.”
The network announced Sanchez’s dismissal in a statement issued this evening:
“Rick Sanchez is no longer with the company. We thank Rick for his years of service and we wish him well,“ the statement read.
During a 55-minute interview on Sirius Satellite’s Pete Dominick Show, Sanchez hit back at being made fun of constantly on the hit Comedy Central series The Daily Show and The Colbert Report.
Sanchez was supposed to be promoting his new book Conventional Idiocy, but instead spent a lot of time talking about race, media balance, objectivity, and of course, Jon Stewart.
“I think to some extent Jon Stewart and [Stephen] Colbert are the same way. I think Jon Stewart’s a bigot,” he said. “I think he looks at the world through, his mom, who was a school teacher, and his dad, who was a physicist or something like that. Great, I’m so happy that he grew up in a suburban middle class New Jersey home with everything you could ever imagine.”
Sanchez also mocked the suggestion that Jews are a minority. Stewart is Jewish.
“Yeah,” Sanchez retorted sarcastically at Dominick’s suggestion that as a Jew Jon may also be familiar with oppression. “Very powerless people… [snickers] He’s such a minority, I mean, you know [sarcastically]… Please, what are you kidding? … I’m telling you that everybody who runs CNN is a lot like Stewart, and a lot of people who run all the other networks are a lot like Stewart, and to imply that somehow they — the people in this country who are Jewish — are an oppressed minority? Yeah.”
The network will broadcast CNN Newsroom in Sanchez’s 3PM-5PM timeslot. for the foreseeable future.
