CNN has terminated its contract with former Sen. Rick Santorum over his public relations fumbles as he received backlash for remarks about early U.S. history, a representative for the network confirmed to the Washington Examiner.
The cable news network quietly ended its contract with Santorum after the Pennsylvania Republican mishandled his interview on CNN‘s Cuomo Prime Time, squandering his opportunity to repair the damage from prior remarks that were deemed insulting to Native Americans, a CNN senior executive told HuffPost.
“Leadership wasn’t particularly satisfied with that appearance. None of the anchors wanted to book him,” the executive told the outlet. “So he was essentially benched anyway.”
RICK SANTORUM: ‘THERE ISN’T MUCH NATIVE AMERICAN CULTURE IN AMERICAN CULTURE’
A representative for CNN confirmed in an email to the Washington Examiner that the network “parted ways with Rick Santorum” but declined further comment.
During a May 3 appearance on Cuomo Prime Time, Santorum addressed the backlash that stemmed from his comments on April 23 in front of Young America’s Foundation, saying he “misspoke” in his remarks.
“No, no, no, no, no. Just to be clear, what I was not saying was that Native American culture — I misspoke. What I was talking about is, as you can see from the run-up, I was talking about the founding of our country,” he said. “I had given a long talk about the Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, and the ideas behind those, and that I was saying we sort of created that anew, if you will.”
Santorum added he was “not trying to dismiss Native Americans,” saying that “they were here and did have an impact.”
“I was talking about — and I misspoke in this respect — I was talking about the founding and the principles embodied in the founding,” he said.
In his April 23 remarks, the former senator told the Young America’s Foundation that settlers fleeing religious persecution “birthed a nation from nothing,” dismissing the extent of Native Americans on the country’s culture.
“We came here and created a blank slate. We birthed a nation from nothing. I mean, there was nothing here. I mean, yes, we have Native Americans, but candidly, there isn’t much Native American culture in American culture,” he said in a speech before the conservative group. “It was born of the people who came here pursuing religious liberty to practice their faith, to live as they ought to live and have the freedom to do so.”
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Despite Santorum saying he “had no intention of minimizing or in any way devaluing Native American culture” in an email to the Washington Examiner, CNN, which employed Santorum as a commentator, faced calls to end its association with him.
Santorum has attracted controversy for some of his statements in the past, particularly those involving race. He clashed with Bakari Sellers in July 2020 after Sellers said he couldn’t reconcile former President George Washington’s greatness with the “inhumanity” that he owned slaves, after which Santorum compared the morality of slavery to abortion.
