CNN fires Sanchez for making controversial remarks on radio

“Rick Sanchez is no longer with the company,” CNN said in a statement on Friday. “We thank Rick for his years of service and we wish him well.”

On Thursday, Sanchez appeared on the XM Sirius radio program ‘Stand-Up with Pete Dominick’ and made some bold remarks.

Sanchez said Jon Stewart of the ‘The Daily Show’ was “a bigot” and that he was bigoted against “everybody else who's not like him. Look at his show, I mean, what does he surround himself with?”

"You watch yourself on his show every day and all they ever do is call you stupid, " said Rick Sanchez

He later took back his “bigot” comment, and called the comedian “prejudicial” instead.

And on being asked he was prejudicial “against who?” Sanchez replied, “Against anybody who doesn’t agree to his point of view, which is very much a white liberal establishment point of view.”

Sanchez claims to be discriminated against
Sanchez, a Cuban-American, repeatedly said during the interview that he experienced subtle forms of discrimination during his television career.

He alleged that he was seen as someone “who belongs in the second tier and not the top tier” by “a lot of elite Northeast establishment liberals.”

Sanchez, who has been working with CNN since 2004, had a two-hour ‘Rick's List’ show on the network’s afternoon lineup.

In recent months, a prime-time version of that show was given to Sanchez but that too came to an end as that time slot was taken by a new show featuring former New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer and columnist Kathleen Parker.

Stewart mocked Sanchez too much
Sanchez was a frequent target for Stewart on Comedy Central's ‘The Daily Show,’ where he often poked fun at him. “You watch yourself on his show every day and all they ever do is call you stupid,” said Sanchez.

Most recently he was mocked for saying on the air that his show had gotten a tweet from House Republican leader John Boehner.

Stewart said, it was like sending “a twit a tweet.”

“He's upset that someone of my ilk is almost at his level,” a clearly upset Sanchez said during his radio interview, which picked heat in no time after being posted on the Mediaite website on Friday.

Stewart is a Jew, pointed a co-host of the radio show, telling Sanchez that he is a minority “as much as you are.” To which, Sanchez sarcastically replied, “Yeah. Yeah. Very powerless people.”

“Everybody that runs CNN is a lot like Stewart,” Sanchez said. “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? Yeah.”