CNN reported Sunday that Fox News host Jeanine Pirro has been suspended due to the controversy over her questioning whether Rep. Ilhan Omar’s Islamic faith is impeding her loyalty to the U.S.
On “Reliable Sources,” host and CNN’s media chief media correspondent Brian Stelter said a source told him Pirro was suspended for one to two weeks. He said Pirro is only in the “penalty box” and his source stressed that she has not been fired and will be back.
The report comes after Pirro’s Saturday evening program was conspicuously absent from Fox News’ lineup.
Asked about it, a Fox News spokesperson told the Washington Examiner, “We’re not commenting on internal scheduling matters.” It’s unclear when Pirro, who also has not tweeted in more than a week, and her show will return.
During her show last week, Pirro used her opening monologue to focus on Omar, D-Minn., who recently came under fire for what were seen as anti-Semitic and anti-Israel comments. “Think about it: Omar wears a hijab,” Pirro said of the Muslim congresswoman. “Is her adherence to this Islamic doctrine indicative of her adherence to Sharia law, which in itself is antithetical to the United States Constitution?”
The monologue prompted swift condemnation from Fox News, which said her comments “do not reflect those of the network and we have addressed the matter with her directly.”
Late Sunday, Pirro said her remarks were meant to start a debate.
President Trump weighed in on the controversy Sunday morning, tweeting at Fox News to “stay strong and fight back” against the “radical” Left working in concert with the media to “silence” his supporters, including Pirro and fellow Fox News host Tucker Carlson, who also recently faced controversy over old comments publicized by a liberal media watchdog.
Audio clips of Carlson’s appearances on the shock jock’s show from 2006 to 2011 were released over the past couple days by Media Matters. In the excerpts, Carlson made sexual jokes about minors, appeared to defend statutory rape, and said women are “extremely primitive.” He also used a term that is insulting to gay people and made comments about race, including questioning the blackness of former President Barack Obama and calling Iraq “a crappy place filled with a bunch of, you know, semiliterate primitive monkeys.”
Carlson has refused to apologize for his remarks, saying he will not bow to the liberal “mob” of critics and has the backing of Fox News.
Some advertisers have distanced themselves from both Pirro and Carlson as they take flak for their comments.
