Rick John Santelli (born July 6, 1956) is an editor for the

CNBC CNBC (formerly Consumer News and Business Channel) is an American basic cable business news channel. It provides business news programming on weekdays from 5:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m., Eastern Time, while broadcasting talk sho ...

Business News network. He joined CNBC as an on-air editor on June 14, 1999, reporting primarily from the floor of the Chicago Board of Trade. He was formerly the vice president for an institutional trading and

hedge fund A hedge fund is a pooled investment fund that trades in relatively liquid assets and is able to make extensive use of more complex trading, portfolio-construction, and risk management techniques in an attempt to improve performance, such as s ...

account for futures-related products. He is also credited as being a catalyst in the early formation of the

Tea Party movement The Tea Party movement was an American fiscally conservative political movement within the Republican Party that began in 2009. Members of the movement called for lower taxes and for a reduction of the national debt and federal budget defi ...

via a statement he made on February 19, 2009.

Early life

The grandson of four

Italian Italian(s) may refer to: * Anything of, from, or related to the people of Italy over the centuries ** Italians, an ethnic group or simply a citizen of the Italian Republic or Italian Kingdom ** Italian language, a Romance language *** Regional Ita ...

immigrants, Rick John Santelli was born near Taylor Street in

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

's old Italian neighborhood and moved with his family to

Lombard, Illinois Lombard is a village in DuPage County, Illinois, United States, and a suburb of Chicago. The population was 43,165 at the 2010 census. The United States Census Bureau estimated the population in 2019 to be 44,303. History Originally part of ...

at age six. After graduating from

Willowbrook High School Willowbrook High School (WBHS) is a public four-year high school in Villa Park, Illinois, a western suburb of Chicago, Illinois. The school is located approximately half a mile north of Illinois Route 38 on Ardmore Ave. It is a part of the DuPage ...

Villa Park, Illinois Villa Park is a village in DuPage County, Illinois, United States, within the Chicago metropolitan area. The population as of the 2020 Census is 21,113. Villa Park is a western suburb of Chicago. History When Ovaltine established its fact ...

, Santelli attended the

University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (U of I, Illinois, University of Illinois, or UIUC) is a public land-grant research university in Illinois in the twin cities of Champaign and Urbana. It is the flagship institution of the Univer ...

, where he was a member of the

Alpha Sigma Phi Alpha Sigma Phi (), commonly known as Alpha Sig, is an intercollegiate men's social fraternity with 181 active chapters and provisional chapters. Founded at Yale in 1845, it is the 10th oldest Greek letter fraternity in the United States. The ...

fraternity and graduated with a

Bachelor of Science A Bachelor of Science (BS, BSc, SB, or ScB; from the Latin ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for programs that generally last three to five years. The first university to admit a student to the degree of Bachelor of Science was the University o ...

economics Economics () is the social science that studies the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services. Economics focuses on the behaviour and interactions of economic agents and how economies work. Microeconomics analyzes ...

in 1979.

Career

Financial

In 1979, he joined the Chicago Mercantile Exchange and the Chicago Board of Trade as a commodity trader and order filler for Drexel Burnham Lambert; he eventually became the Vice President of Interest Rate Futures and Options.

Media

In the 1990s, Santelli felt that the financial industry was changing in a way "not beneficial to me and my family", and accepted a full-time job with

in 1999.

Controversies

"Chicago Tea Party" remarks

Santelli drew attention for his remarks made on February 19, 2009, about the

Homeowners Affordability and Stability Plan The Homeowners Affordability and Stability Plan is a U.S. program announced on February 18, 2009, by U.S. President Barack Obama. According to the US Treasury Department, it is a $75 billion program to help up to nine million homeowners avoid forec ...

, which was announced on February 18. While broadcasting from the floor of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, Santelli accused the government of "promoting bad behavior", and raised the possibility of a "Chicago Tea Party". He suggested that individuals who knowingly obtained high-risk mortgages (and faced impending foreclosure as a consequence) were "losers". The

Tea Party A tea party is a social gathering event held in the afternoon. For centuries, many societies have cherished drinking tea with a company at noon. Tea parties are considered for formal business meetings, social celebrations or just as an afternoon ...

remark was credited by some as "igniting" the

as a national phenomenon.

Responses

Described as "Loquacious and self-aggrandizing" by media, Santelli's remarks were characterized as a rant. CNBC canceled Santelli's scheduled interview on ''

The Daily Show ''The Daily Show'' is an American late-night talk and satirical news television program. It airs each Monday through Thursday on Comedy Central with release shortly after on Paramount+. ''The Daily Show'' draws its comedy and satire form from ...

'' with Jon Stewart on March 4, 2009. Santelli later clarified his comments and addressed concerns that the event was staged. On April 20, 2009, Santelli participated as a panel member in an Economic Leadership Forum hosted by the

George Bush Presidential Library The George H.W. Bush Presidential Library and Museum is the presidential library and burial site of George H. W. Bush, the 41st president of the United States (1989–1993), and his wife Barbara Bush. Located on a site on the west campus of T ...

Foundation at

Texas A&M University Texas A&M University (Texas A&M, A&M, or TAMU) is a public, land-grant, research university in College Station, Texas. It was founded in 1876 and became the flagship institution of the Texas A&M University System in 1948. As of late 2021, T ...

CNN.com CNN (Cable News Network) is a multinational cable news channel headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, U.S. Founded in 1980 by American media proprietor Ted Turner and Reese Schonfeld as a 24-hour cable news channel, and presently owned by ...

reported that some compared Santelli to fictional reporter Howard Beale, the protagonist of the 1976 satirical film ''

Network Network, networking and networked may refer to: Science and technology * Network theory, the study of graphs as a representation of relations between discrete objects * Network science, an academic field that studies complex networks Mathematics ...

''. Santelli said: Santelli's comments garnered praise from

libertarians Libertarianism (from french: libertaire, "libertarian"; from la, libertas, "freedom") is a political philosophy that upholds liberty as a core value. Libertarians seek to maximize autonomy and political freedom, and minimize the state's enc ...

. Mark R. Crovelli wrote: Santelli has been condemned by the left;

George Monbiot George Joshua Richard Monbiot ( ; born 27 January 1963) is a British writer known for his environmental and political activism. He writes a regular column for ''The Guardian'' and is the author of a number of books. Monbiot grew up in Oxfordsh ...

said "it is the most alarming example of cheap demagoguery you are likely to have seen."

Paul Krugman Paul Robin Krugman ( ; born February 28, 1953) is an American economist, who is Distinguished Professor of Economics at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, and a columnist for ''The New York Times''. In 2008, Krugman was ...

claimed that:

COVID-19 virus remarks

In 2020, media reported that, after a series of stock declines driven by fears of a COVID-19 virus pandemic, Santelli stated, during a live broadcast of ''The Santelli Exchange'', on March 5, that "maybe we’d be just better off if we gave

he virus He or HE may refer to: Language * He (pronoun), an English pronoun * He (kana), the romanization of the Japanese kana へ * He (letter), the fifth letter of many Semitic alphabets * He (Cyrillic), a letter of the Cyrillic script called ''He'' ...

to everybody, and then in a month it would be over because the mortality rate of OVID-19probably isn’t going to be any different if we did it that way than nthe long-term picture, but the difference is we’re wreaking havoc on global and domestic economies." Santelli subsequently apologized for making the “dumbest, most ignorant” remarks about managing the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identi ...

. Santelli was, again, criticized by media outlets, following his launch of a shouting match with CNBC news anchor

Andrew Ross Sorkin Andrew Ross Sorkin (born February 19, 1977) is an American journalist and author. He is a financial columnist for ''The New York Times'' and a co-anchor of CNBC's ''Squawk Box.'' He is also the founder and editor of DealBook, a financial news s ...

, on December 4, 2020, over current government recommendations and legal measures directing individuals in order to curtail the

. Santelli's rant against restrictions was repeatedly met by Sorkin, who asserted that science opposed Santelli's views, and deemed his diatribe "a disservice to the viewer."

Personal life

Since 2015, Santelli has lived with his wife in

Wayne, Illinois Wayne is a village in DuPage and Kane counties, Illinois, United States. The eastern portion, in DuPage County, is in Wayne Township, while the western portion, in Kane County, is in St. Charles Township. The population was 2,431 at the 2010 c ...

References

External links

Rick Santelli bio on CNBC.com

Original speech by Rick Santelli on CNBC.com

{{DEFAULTSORT:Santelli, Rick 1956 births Living people American television reporters and correspondents American business and financial journalists American male journalists University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign alumni Drexel Burnham Lambert People from Wheaton, Illinois Tea Party movement activists CNBC people American people of Italian descent Journalists from Illinois Businesspeople from Chicago People from Lombard, Illinois