Colorado Politics

Radio host fired for wanting ‘nice school shooting’ to interrupt impeachment

Radio station KNUS 710 on Wednesday canceled one of its programs after the co-host apparently joked for a “nice school shooting” to interrupt the impeachment proceedings against President Donald Trump.

“Given the history of school violence that has plagued our community, 710 KNUS confirms that an inappropriate comment was made on the Chuck & Julie show by co-host Chuck Bonniwell. A programming decision was made to end the program immediately,” the station said on Twitter.

Bonniwell’s comment came shortly after 1:30, when he said that he and co-host Julie Hayden would be “talking about the never-ending impeachment of Donald Trump. You know you wish for a nice school shooting to interrupt —”

Hayden then interrupted him, saying, “Don’t even — don’t even say that. No, don’t even say that. Don’t call us. Chuck didn’t say that.”

Bonniwell added: “Where — no, which no one would be hurt.”

The Colorado Times Recorder originally obtained the audio file.

The two hosts, who are married, had a Saturday morning show on KOA 850 for many years. They then moved to KNUS’s Saturday show, and from there to the weekday drive-time slot.

Earlier that day, Bonniwell and Hayden tweeted from their show account to U.S. Rep. Diana DeGette, calling the impeachment a “sham” and saying “there is NO honor in what you are doing.”

The Denver Post reported that after the on-air remarks, Bonniwell tweeted through the account, “I made an inappropriate comment meant as a joke. I’m sorry it was not received that way.”

That tweet appeared to be deleted as of Thursday morning.

The latest news at KNUS follows other incidents at the station in which a host was fired seemingly for his anti-Trump statements and a producer has been accused of holding neo-Nazi views.

Editor’s note: The story has been updated to reflect the outlet that originally obtained the show audio.

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