Fired CNN Host Rick Sanchez Apologizes to Jon Stewart

Oct. 6, 2010— -- Fired CNN host Rick Sanchez apologized to "Daily Show" host Jon Stewart and anyone else he may have offended with his "inartful comments" during a radio show last week.

"I am very much opposed to hate and intolerance, in any form, and I have frequently spoken out against prejudice," he said in a prepared statement. "Despite what my tired and mangled words may have implied, they were never intended to suggest any sort of narrow-mindedness and should never have been made."

Sanchez, the former host of CNN's "Rick's List," made the derogatory comments about Stewart and Jewish people last Thursday on the radio show "Stand Up! With Pete Dominick" in reaction to a recent jab that Stewart made at him on Comedy Central's "The Daily Show." When Sanchez reported that he'd received a tweet from House Republican Leader John Boehner, Stewart called it a case of "send a twit a tweet."

"He's upset that someone of my ilk is almost at his level," Sanchez said of Stewart in an interview with Dominick.

He added that he believed Stewart was bigoted toward "everybody else that's not like him."

Sanchez, who was born in Cuba, added that Stewart "can't relate to what I grew up with," and said how, as he was growing up, his family was poor and his father was a victim of prejudice.

Dominick, who is also a CNN contributor and was once the warm-up comic for "The Daily Show," pointed out that Stewart, who is Jewish, comes from a minority group. Sanchez dismissed the notion.

"I'm telling you that everyone who runs CNN is a lot like Stewart, 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," Sanchez said.

"I can't see someone not getting a job these days because they're Jewish," he added.

Dominick pressed Sanchez during the heated interview, and eventually Sanchez backed down on his use of the word bigot.

"OK. I'll take bigot back," he said. "[Stewart is] prejudicial."

Stewart is "not just a comedian," he said. "He can make and break careers."