A radio show host in Denver was fired midway through his three-hour show on Saturday after he criticized President Trump.
The operations manager for KNUS, a conservative talk-radio station, walked into the studio after a Saturday segment about Trump’s former personal attorney Roy Cohn and told Craig Silverman, “You’re done.”
It’s unclear whether Silverman’s firing was due to his critical comments about the president or his appearances on competing stations. Silverman told the New York Times he supported Trump in the 2016 election but has since “stepped back off the Trump train.”
He said he was never told what he could say on-air at the station owned by Salem Media Group, which Silverman described as being “100% behind Donald Trump,” but his invitations to appear on his colleagues’ shows gradually stopped. Silverman said he thought it was because of his views on Trump.
“I expressed myself on Twitter, but I was hoping to be able to express myself on my own radio station, but that wasn’t available,” he said. “So, other media outlets asked me on.”
Silverman said he was warned last week by KNUS managers that his job would be in jeopardy if he continued appearing on competing shows.
“I canceled going on, and then I met with them on Thursday,” he said. “I explained that under my contract, I have a right to go on other media. And they said, ‘Well, we don’t want you to do it.'”
Since his firing, KNUS has also removed all of Silverman’s content from its website, including more than five years of podcasts.