Is Rick Santelli the Father of the Tea Party? ‘If that’s what they put on my tombstone, they can bury me with a smile.’
July 19th, 2010 | Published in News
“The markets are the world’s greatest Rubik’s cube,” says CNBC’s Rick Santelli. “And I love solving puzzles.”
In fact, as he provides live updates each weekday from the CME (Chicago Mercantile Exchange) group trading floor, Santelli feels his mission is to put the pieces together, helping viewers figure out where the markets — and the nation’s economy — are headed.
“These are important topics that are going to affect every man, woman, and child in the world,” Santelli tells TVNewser during an interview between live shots, “and I want to do my best job to portray it as I see it in an honest, objective fashion.”
A “Chicago guy that started out as a runner” in 1979 for Shearson, Santelli “worked my way through” as a trader and financial services executive before — by fluke — being asked to provide television commentary.
Santelli discovered he liked TV. He started making guest appearances on CNBC in 1994, joining the network full-time in 1999.
Regular viewers soon came to realize Santelli isn’t exactly shy about debating the news of the day. He’ll mix it up with fellow CNBCers Steve Liesman and Dennis Kneale, among others.
Santelli calls his most heated moments “passionate outbursts, but ‘rants’ is okay [too], I really don’t have a problem with it!”
His most famous rant — against the administration’s Homeowners Affordability and Stability Plan — came in February of last year. The Rant-Heard-’Round-the-World catapulted Santelli into the national consciousness, even drawing a rebuke from White House press secretary Robert Gibbs.