Rick Sanchez: Was CNN Right to Fire Him?

(Article updated with information on Rick Sanchez's interview with George Stephanopoulos on ABC's Good Morning America.)

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- Rick Sanchez was fired from CNN last week after he made several controversial remarks.

In an interview on Pete Dominick's Sirius (SIRI) satellite radio show, Stand Up!, on Sept. 30, Sanchez referred to Comedy Central host Jon Stewart as a "bigot." He also suggested that most media networks, including CNN, are run by Jews who look down on Hispanics like himself.

The remarks came after Stewart and Stephen Colbert constantly mocked him on their respective shows, The Daily Show and Colbert Report, which both air on Viacom's (VIA) Comedy Central. This clip from Colbert shows that Stewart had clearly gotten under Sanchez's skin.

Early in his interview with Dominick, Sanchez called Stewart "a bigot," then revised the term later in their conversation to "prejudicial" and "uninformed."

Vote: Should CNN Have Fired Rick Sanchez

When Dominick asked him to explain what makes Stewart a bigot he replied, "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."

When Dominick informed Sanchez that Stewart is in fact Jewish and therefore a minority himself, he said, "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?" to which he sarcastically responded to his own question, "Yeah."

"I can't see somebody not getting a job somewhere because they're Jewish," Sanchez said.

The day after the interview, Sanchez did not appear on his CNN show Rick's List. That evening the network, owned by Time Warner (TWX), released a statement regarding his termination.

1 2 3 4 Next › Last »