CNN has apologized to its viewers after a panelist on its NewsNight program made derogatory comments suggesting that a fellow guest on the show, broadcaster Mehdi Hasan, was a terrorist.

Ryan James Girdusky, a conservative commentator, told Hasan, an American Guardian columnist and former MSNBC host who is Muslim, that he hoped his “pager doesn’t go off,” in an apparent reference to Israel’s attacks on Hezbollah fighters in Lebanon . with exploding pagers last month. The wave of coordinated explosions killed 12 people and injured thousands.

“Did your guy just say I should be killed on live TV?” Hasan asked the show’s host, Abby Phillip.

After a commercial break, Phillip issued an on-air apology to Hasan and the viewers, saying that Girdusky had been removed from the show.

“I would like to apologize to Mehdi Hasan for what was said at this table. It was completely unacceptable,” she said. “I would like to apologize to the viewers at home.”

In a subsequent statement, CNN said there was “no room for racism or bigotry at CNN or on our broadcast” and that Girdusky “will no longer be welcome on our network.” Hasan retweeted the statement about X.

Earlier in their heated exchange, Hasan had said that if people on the far right “don’t want to be called Nazis, then stop doing, stop saying.” Girdusky intervened, saying Hasan was called an “anti-Semite” “more than anyone else at this table.”

After Hasan said he was used to being labeled an anti-Semite for his support of the Palestinian people, Girdusky said, “Well, I hope your pager doesn’t go off.” He tried to apologize amid crosstalk and tried to justify his comment by saying he thought Hasan was saying he supported Hamas.

However, in a later post on X, Girdusky seemed to double down on a more antagonistic approach. “You can stay on CNN if you falsely call every Republican a Nazi and have taken money from Qatari-funded media,” he said. “Apparently you can’t get on CNN if you’re joking. I’m glad America sees what CNN stands for.”