Former Senator Rick Santorum has been fired from CNN as a conservative commentator after his racist comments about Native Americans–and blew his chance at an on-the-air apology. Apparently Santorum didn’t realize that CNN bigwigs were watching his weak non-apology apology and he became the walking dead until he was fired. CNN has faced a dilemma in getting conservative commentators since so much politics now involves half-truths, the dissemination of slopping or false history and outright l-i-e-s.
CNN has terminated its contract with senior political commentator Rick Santorum after racist, inaccurate remarks he made about Native Americans, HuffPost has learned.
Santorum, a former Republican senator and two-time failed GOP presidential candidate, sparked outrage last month after claiming there was “nothing” in America before white colonizers arrived and that Native people haven’t contributed much to American culture, anyway.
With Santorum’s ignorant, racist comments you almost expected him to next say “Why don’t they go back to where they came from?”
“We birthed a nation from nothing. I mean, there was nothing here,” Santorum told students during remarks at a Young America’s Foundation event. “I mean, yes, we have Native Americans, but candidly, there isn’t much Native American culture in American culture.”
Prominent Indigenous-led organizations including the National Congress of American Indians and Illuminative have spent weeks demanding that CNN fire Santorum over his remarks. National civil rights groups have also called for his firing. CNN has stayed silent on the matter.
But on Saturday, a CNN senior executive told HuffPost that the network quietly ended its contract with Santorum this week. This executive, who requested anonymity to speak openly, said the decision to cut ties with Santorum came after he went on one of the network’s shows, “Cuomo Prime Time,” to explain himself shortly after he made his racist comments. He blew it, said this executive, and after that, nobody at the network wanted to keep him around.
“Leadership wasn’t particularly satisfied with that appearance. None of the anchors wanted to book him,” said the executive. “So he was essentially benched anyway.”
During his appearance on Chris Cuomo’s show, Santorum said he “misspoke” and that his comments were “out of context.” But the context of his remarks was simply that he said them, and he did not apologize during the segment.
“I think after that appearance, it was pretty clear we couldn’t use him again,” said the executive.
CNN has has a problem. Once upon a not-too-distant time politics was about policy, often highly passionate debates about policy. Now it’s about personality and sound bytes that shock. Add to that the fact that cable news stations automatically favor controversial comments that help keep their audiences coming back for more since the cable networks then sell their demographic audience mix to advertisers. It’s hard to believe that anyone with Santorum’s educational background could make comments so incredibly dumb…then not do a full apology which would have defused the controversy swirling around him.
Mediaite on CNN:”Dropping Santorum might be a result that ultimately pleases critics, but doing so in the form of a silent but deadly left-cheek sneak a month after the fact is hardly a profile in courage.”
Putin needs to find a new CNN contributor. pic.twitter.com/VsnU9tccCY
— Justin ???? (@Justinianuscode) May 22, 2021
How much y’all wanna bet the same people who championed AP firing Emily Wilder for expressing solidarity with Palestinians are going to scream cancel culture at CNN firing Santorum for racism & white washing Native American genocide?
https://t.co/xH0ZcQbdEZ— Qasim Rashid, Esq. (@QasimRashid) May 22, 2021
So CNN has terminated their contract with Rick Santorum.
I am a Native American journalist.
I exist. My culture exists.
This response from CNN shows that yes Mr. Santorum, there IS Native American culture in American culture.https://t.co/ycZCH2eGKS pic.twitter.com/WISc8v7o6p
— Vincent Schilling (@VinceSchilling) May 22, 2021
RICK SANTORUM NATIVE AMERICAN REMARKS pic.twitter.com/IQX3mboycL
— Tomthunkit™ (@TomthunkitsMind) May 18, 2021
Santorum kicked off CNN over stupid Native American comments. One down, 74 million to go.. pic.twitter.com/hKBIy5RoPZ
— Joseph Weber (@JoeOCBarrister) May 22, 2021
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.