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UPDATE, with video Geraldo Rivera said on ABC’s The View today that his recent firing from Fox News’ The Five came amidst his “toxic relationship” with one of the show’s co-hosts.
Rivera wouldn’t identify The Five co-host beyond saying the person was male, which leaves Jesse Watters or Greg Gutfeld. (Rivera specifically said he has a good relationship with Jeanine Pirro, saying, “I discovered Jeanine.”)
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In a wide-ranging interview, Rivera described the atmosphere at Fox News in the wake of the Dominion lawsuit settlement as one of “fear,” indicated that he supported the decision by Ray Epps to file a defamation lawsuit against the network, said that Donald Trump “stabbed the Constitution of the United States in the back” by encouraging the Jan. 6th attack, and that he would devote whatever is left of his journalism career to opposing a Donald Trump re-election. He also said he will “never forgive” Tucker Carlson for spreading misinformation about the Jan. 6th riots.
Speaking of Carlson, Rivera was asked by The View co-host Sara Haines if Carlson’s influence is “waning” since he was fired from Fox News and moved to Twitter. “I hope so,” Rivera responded, adding that while Twitter is “a fine outlet,” compared to the platform of Fox News it amounts to “screaming into the wilderness.”
While Rivera praised Carlson’s talents as a writer and on-screen talent, he condemned Carlson’s “drift” into “this murky area, this swampy area” of these “funky kind of conspiracies.”
“I don’t like to be unkind, but what he did, just as I will never vote for Donald Trump, I will never forgive Tucker about January 6th,” Rivera said.
Rivera said that the network’s recent multi-million-dollar legal settlements has led to an “atmosphere of fear” at the network, and that the financial impact will hit both stockholders and, through possible layoffs, lower-level news staff. “The high-profile journalists [will be] fine,” he said.
Rivera parted ways with Fox News last month after more than two decades. He initially said at the time that he was leaving his perch at The Five voluntarily (“That’s what we all say,” View co-host Joy Behar quipped today), but later conceded that he had been fired from the popular show.
Today, Rivera provided more details, noting that a “toxic relationship” with one of The Five‘s co-hosts led to his firing, and that the discord had been getting increasingly personal. “I thought it was very unfair that in our disputes, he was always favored.” Rivera said his appearances on the show began to dwindle, sometimes being canceled on the day of airing.
He said Fox News offered to find him a spot on another show, but that he responded, If you fired me from the #1 show, then I’m going to quit.”
Asked by View co-host Sunny Hostin why Fox couldn’t have built a new show around him, Rivera said, “My ideology does not fit Fox. They always kind of squeezed me in.”
Rivera defended his longtime chummy relationship with Donald Trump, saying the two “came up” together in New York City during the 1970s and that Rivera’s stint as a contestant on Celebrity Apprentice – which aired shortly before Trump announced his presidential bid – provided “tremendous access” to Trump “even though he knew I didn’t vote for him.
“What happened to him was that he lost the [re]election and became a crazy guy,” Rivera said, to which Behar responded, “He was crazy before that.”
“He was always nice to me,” Rivera said.
“Did he know you were Puerto Rican?,” snapped Hostin?
At one point, Rivera said, “I am vowed to dedicate whatever energy I have left in this profession is to ensure he is not ever re-elected president ever.” Trump, he said, “incited a riot, he encouraged people to go there and ruin their lives.”
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