CNN cuts ties with Rick Santorum over disparaging comments about Native Americans
- ‘We birthed a nation from nothing,’ Santorum said. ‘Yes, there were Native Americans, but there isn’t much Native American culture in American culture’
- Fawn Sharp, president of the National Congress of American Indians, called Santorum ‘an unhinged and embarrassing racist’
CNN is cutting ties with former Republican senator and current TV analyst Rick Santorum over disparaging comments he made about Native American culture.
On CNN, Santorum was a senior political commentator who was often tasked with giving the Republican point of view during campaign coverage. His parting ways with the network was confirmed on Saturday by Alison Rudnick, vice-president of HLN Communications and CNN Diversity and Inclusion.
He sparked controversy in an April 23 speech before the Young America’s Foundation, a conservative youth organisation. Santorum said immigrants created a nation based on the Judeo-Christian ethic from a blank slate.
“We birthed a nation from nothing,” he said. “Yes, there were Native Americans, but there isn’t much Native American culture in American culture.”
The comment prompted Fawn Sharp, president of the National Congress of American Indians, to call him “an unhinged and embarrassing racist who disgraces CNN and any other media company that provides him a platform.”
“To correct the record, what European colonisers found in the Americas were thousands of complex, sophisticated, and sovereign tribal nations, each with millennia of distinct cultural, spiritual and technological development,” she wrote in a statement.