Rudy Giuliani’s election rant, other behavior ‘makes it hard not to terminate him,’ WABC radio boss says

Billionaire WABC radio owner John Catsimatidis on Sunday unloaded on ex-Mayor Rudy Giuliani again, saying the suspended radio host’s behavior left him little choice but to can him.

“It’s pretty hard to bring him back,” Catsimatidis told The Post. “His behavior makes it very hard to reverse course. He makes it hard not to terminate him.”

Catsimatidis filled in on Giuliani’s scheduled Sunday show from 10 to 11 a.m. along with other WABC 770 hosts Curtis Sliwa and Dominick Carter.

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The radio boss said the ex-mayor had “three strikes” against him after hearing Giuliani’s criticism on other media platforms over the weekend about his initial suspension.

Catsimatidis said all of his radio hosts had received a memo not to discuss the electronic voting machines or the accuracy of them during the 2020 election, after the radio station received a letter from lawyers with Dominion Voting Systems. Dominion had sued other media outlets for defamation.

The supermarket and media mogul said he didn’t want his radio station to be dragged into litigation over false claims from Giuliani.

Giuliani fired back later Sunday, calling Catsimatidis a “bald-faced liar​,” saying, “I’ve been talking about the 2020 election on the show for four years.

“What’s changed in the last four  years?”

He claimed Catsimatidis is becoming a stooge for President Biden and the Democrats. 

Catsimatidis said the station “dubbed” or “bleeped” Giuliani when the onetime personal lawyer for Donald Trump discussed the voting machines last week, resulting in his suspension for violating the edict.

The station has a 30-second delay, so Giuliani’s comments didn’t make it on the public airwaves.

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Giuliani’s program was suspended pending further discussion, he said.

“That was strike 1,” Catsimatidis said.

He also said Giuiliani “issued an ultimatum to double the hours of his show – or else.”

“Strike two,” Catsimatidis said.

Giuliani, speaking on his “America’s Mayor” show on X on Friday night, then accused Catsimatidis of trampling on his First Amendment free-speech rights.

“What John Catsimatidis has done is disgraceful. With the pretense that he was building some kind of a First Amendment station, he blew a hole in the First Amendment that’s so big you can’t even find it. You can’t tell somebody not to talk about the 2020 presidential election and tell me that you have a respect for free speech,” Giuliani said.

Catsimatidis fired back on those claims Sunday and said he was not aware that Giuliani had a paid gig with TV station Newsmax.

He called Giuliani’s blowback “strike three.”

He also said he gave Giuliani’s sidekick, Maria Ryan, 30 days notice for her departure.

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“What happened last week was very tragic,” Catsimatidis said on the air Sunday during what had been the time slot for the “Rudy Giuliani Show.”

References to the Giuliani show have been removed from the WABC website.

“When I hired Rudy I got a lot of criticism,” Catsimatidis said, referring to​ the controversy around the ex-mayor and former federal prosecutor, including  ​an FBI probe. “In this country, you’re innocent until proven guilty.”

He said he thought Giuliani had been a great mayor and considered the falling-out sad.

But Giuliani on Sunday again accused Catsimatidis of adopting an anti-free speech, anti-American policy at his station that not only censors his radio hosts but denies listeners of his station critical information.

“I’m not going to work for a censorship station. No one at the station can talk about the 2020 election? I talk about the 2020 election all the time​. I can’t talk about the 2020 election when there is a $148 million judgment against me?”  he said.

“John doesn’t have enough money to get me to do that. He can’t influence me with this money. He can go stuff it,” the ex-mayor fumed.

“John has a lot of money. The question is does he have a lot of principles. He’s doing the bidding and work of Biden. He’s hurting American democracy.”

Giuliani ​said he — ​through the NY Post — helped expose the Hunter Biden laptop scandal, while others initially sought to censor the story at the behest of Hunter’s father Joe just weeks before the 2020 election.