Geraldo Rivera slammed his ex-friend, former President Donald Trump over the January 6 attack on the United States Capitol during an interview on The View on Thursday, July 13. The former Fox News journalist vowed to do everything in his power to make sure that his ex-pal will never be re-elected president again. “He stabbed the Constitution of the United States in the back,” he told The View hosts, explaining why the Capitol attack was his breaking point.
After being fired from Fox News' 'The Five,' @GeraldoRivera tells #TheView exclusively he left the network because his "ideology does not fit Fox."
"If you fired me from the number one [Fox News] show, then I'm going to quit," he says he told executives. https://t.co/cVclFZQmjA pic.twitter.com/xmTjjsGfvr
— The View (@TheView) July 13, 2023
Rivera said that he and Trump were pals “for decades,” after coming up in New York City during the 1970s. He said that during his term as president, he was very kind to the then-Fox Anchor. “I did Celebrity Apprentice. And then, as fate would have it, just weeks after I did Celebrity Apprentice, he announced for the presidency. So, how many people have their friend, drinking buddy—although he didn’t drink, I did—in the White House as President of the United States? He gave me tremendous access. He was always very nice to me, even though he knew I didn’t vote for him,” he said. “What happened to him was he lost the election and became a crazy guy.”
While Rivera admitted that Trump was “always nice” to him, he couldn’t support his run for office again in 2024. “I am vowed to dedicate whatever energy I have left in the profession to ensure that he’s not re-elected president ever. I think what he did in the days and weeks leading up to January 6 and on January 6 was so unforgivable,” he said.
While he still shares fond memories with Trump, he said that the January 6 attack should keep him out the Oval Office. “Even though I still have affection for him and remember the good times, because of that, he’s disqualified—I believe—from ever being President of the United States ever again,” he explained.
Trump has been subjected to many criminal investigations since he left office in January 2021. Congress created a House Select Committee to investigate the January 6 attack, and they recommended four criminal charges be brought against him. He’s also been indicted after a federal investigation for taking classified documents and in New York for falsifying business records. He’s also currently the subject of a grand jury investigation in Georgia for his efforts to overturn the 2020 election.
Elsewhere in the interview, Rivera also spoke about his firing from Fox in June 2023. After six months on The Five, he spoke about how he had a “toxic relationship” with an unnamed co-host, and he said after he was fired from the talk show, it led to his full-departure from the show. “I thought that it was very unfair that I was not judged objectively in our disputes, but rather, he was always favored,” he said. “I was really ticked off.”
Despite the negative terms that he left the network on, Rivera explained that he was “not mad at anybody,” and that he wasn’t sure what his next move would be. He also said that his “ideology does not fit Fox,” and admitted that he felt like he “should have left” in 2011 after Osama Bin Laden’s death, because the 9/11 attack was part of why he joined the network in the first place.