“Blame the Tea Party? Geez, no wonder Kerry did so well in an election. If it wasn't for the Tea Party, they would have passed the debt ceiling thumbs up; we would have been rated BBB.”

American business journalist and television editor

Rick Santelli is an American business journalist and television editor, active in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. He worked for CNBC Business News and reported mainly from the floor of the Chicago Board of Trade. He joined CNBC as an on-air editor on June 14, 1999, after earlier serving as vice president for an institutional trading and hedge fund account focused on futures-related products. He is also widely associated with a remark he made on February 19, 2009, which is credited as helping spark the early Tea Party movement.