This article has been updated with a response from WABC owner John Catsimatidis.
Near the beginning of his first radio show in more than a decade, Anthony Cumia complained about how he can no longer say offensive things on air.
“It’s the angry mob of people with phones, with the ability to email your boss and the board of directors and everyone else that you said something that offended them,” he said about 14 minutes into his two-hour slot last Sunday on New York’s conservative talk radio station 77 WABC. “Now you have all those complaints sitting out there, on your ass, so it got very hard to be a shock jock at that point.”
Cumia has direct experience with being canceled. He was fired from his last show, Opie & Anthony on Sirius XM, in 2014 after he went on a profane social media tirade against a Black woman he called an “animal.” That was his last major radio gig before the 77 WABC show, which first aired on Sunday.
But if Cumia thinks there’s nowhere safe to publicly share bigoted thoughts, he should pay a visit to his own feed on X. Over the past couple of years, including in the months leading up to his new job, Cumia has published a stream of antisemitic, racist and pro-Hitler posts which, as of this week, are still up for all to see.
He is a fan of Sid Rosenberg, the Jewish right-wing broadcaster who also hosts a show on WABC. And he is a fan of Nick Fuentes, the white supremacist influencer and Holocaust denier.
Last March 30, above a post about Transgender Day of Visibility, he tweeted, “It is hereby proclaimed that Monday, April 22nd 2024 is Adolf Hitler Visibility Day.” The following month, he wrote, “White people all over the world really need to get 1930’s Germany kinda pissed at this point”
Then, in June, above a photo of New York Sen. Chuck Schumer, who is Jewish, grilling beef patties, he wrote, “Rumor has it 6,000,000 burgers were cooked that day.”
On Dec. 20, he tweeted, “Germany had a real leader once.” Five days later, above a picture of President Joe Biden lighting a wooden menorah for Hanukkah, he wrote, “Made from the same wood used on those chamber doors?”
He also admires contemporary antisemites, including Fuentes, posting a smiling photo with him last June and inviting him on his podcast in 2022.
“I started watching your show maybe a year ago, or so, and I f—ing love it, dude,” Cumia told Fuentes as they sat at a table, recording the 2022 podcast episode on video. “It’s funny, and informative, and pertinent to what’s going on, and courageous — I’ll say that too.”
In June 2024, he tweeted at Fuentes, “Hey! Leave the blacks to me, Nick. You have your hands full with the jews.”
Indeed, his anti-Black animus is a theme of his social media posts. “In Beaufort, South Carolina. A lot of history here. I look at every old tree branch and wonder if any of them ‘helped out’ with the cause back in the old days,” he tweeted in November, referring to lynching. Then, using a term for the Civil War popular among those who sympathize with the Confederacy, he added, “Here’s a cannon that I hope ripped up some Yankees during the war of northern aggression.”
As American media has fragmented and seismically transformed in recent decades, AM radio has retained its longtime role as a bastion of conservative discourse — an airwaves version of the streaming shows that have become a mainstay of far-right commentary. And WABC has leveraged the trend to great effect, with owner and former New York City mayoral candidate John Catsimatidis amassing a lineup that audience data shows draws listeners for more than six hours a week on average.
Neither 77WABC nor its parent company, Red Apple Media, responded to requests for comment prior to this article’s publication. Following publication, Catsimatidis told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, regarding Cumia, that “WABC will not allow him to say anything antisemitic.”
Catsimatidis said he believed Cumia’s contract prohibited antisemitic speech on WABC, which the owner called “the most pro-Jewish station in America.” He said WABC was aware of Cumia’s posts prior to making the hire, and had discussed them with him.
“He says anything antisemitic, he’s off the network,” Catsimatidis said. “We’re not going to put on somebody that’s bad for our people.”
Cumia is open about his penchant to offend, attributing it to his line of work. He described being a shock jock as being “the worst possible human being you could find.”
He went on, “Just irritating, obnoxious. All they talked about was sexual innuendo and body functions… racial jokes, misogynistic jokes. it was supposed to be — here comes the name — shocking.”
There was no overt antisemitism on his show Sunday, though it included passing references to “globalists” and to the way Tony Soprano treated a Jewish associate on “The Sopranos.” He also went on an extended riff about sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and how celebrities in Hollywood wield outsize political influence, all in the context of why he thinks the Justice Department’s recent focus on Epstein was a waste of time.
And Cumia’s tweets do not appear to have dampened his friendship with Rosenberg, a fellow shock jock who spoke at President Donald Trump’s Madison Square Garden rally last year and who has himself been fired for racist comments. He thanked and complimented Rosenberg repeatedly on his show on Sunday.
At one point, jokingly speaking in the voice of the station owners, he quipped, “Wait, what are we worried about, we’ve got this piece of garbage Sid Rosenberg working for us. How bad could Anthony be? He’s a saint in comparison to Sid.”
He continued, “Sid knows I love him. I adore the guy.”
The feeling is mutual. Last week, ahead of his first show, Cumia went on Rosenberg’s program, where Rosenberg touted Cumia’s “brilliant stylings” and said, “We’re very, very lucky to have you.”
There’s every indication the station is happy with Cumia. On Tuesday, its parent company announced that his show would be syndicated nationally.
Chad Lopez, president of Red Apple and WABC, said in a statement, “Radio clearly wants Anthony Cumia.”
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