Did McCain Campaign Pull CNN Guest Due To Palin Story?

Sources tell TVNewser CNN anchor Rick Sanchez got in some hot water last week after a segment on his midday show looked into the Alaskan Independence Party. The segment discussed Todd Palin‘s seven-year membership in the group. It turns out not only was the McCain campaign peeved, but sources tell us Sanchez and his EP got a talking-to from the bosses, too.

Well, yesterday Sanchez and his producers had scheduled an interview with the McCain campaign’s Maryland chairman, Daniel Zubairi. At a McCain rally this weekend, Zubairi, who is Muslim, was trying to calm other Muslim voters after they’d been confronted by a McCain supporter who was telling rally-goers about Barack Obama‘s “Islamic background.”

The exchange was caught on tape by Davin Hutchins, a producer from the American News Project

Zubairi had been scheduled to appear on Sanchez’s show Monday to discuss what happened at the rally. Sanchez tells HuffPo’s Sam Stein the campaign pulled Zubairi at the last minute.

“Wouldn’t you think they would have wanted him to come on?” Sanchez asks. “What the guy did was courageous. I called him heroic. I’m mystified why they wouldn’t embrace him for his actions.”

The ANP video from the McCain rally is after the jump…

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