Former Fox News personality Geraldo Rivera continued his effort to ingratiate himself with his far-left friends by throwing former President Donald Trump under the bus, figuratively speaking, during a recent CNN interview.
Rivera was responding to a set-up by CNN’s Abby Phillip, who referenced Trump’s remarks that illegal aliens pouring into the country thanks to President Joe Biden’s lax border security policies were “poisoning the blood of our country.” He then ripped a Trump spokesperson who said the phrase is “used in everyday life” as “absolute bulls**t.”
“I think it’s vile. I think it’s disgusting. It’s very disappointing,” Rivera said about Trump’s comment in a video shared online by Mediaite.
“To sink to that level, it’s for me a personal embarrassment that we were friends for so long,” he continued, according to HuffPost. “This language is racist, it is really disgusting, and, you know, some things cannot abide. We cannot abide certain things, and he has crossed the line. I beseech his followers to listen to what he said about poison blood.”
Rivera then moved to equate Trump to the Nazis — a familiar tactic on the left — by saying that they used similar “poison blood” references.
“I hate to use Nazi or Hitler references, but it is impossible to miss the obvious parallels,” he said. “Poison blood, it was a direct reference. He made a direct reference that the migrants, the immigrants, mostly Latinos now, may I say, are poisoning, and polluting the blood of real Americans. It is intolerable. I mean, it’s absolutely beyond the pale.”
After Phillips noted that a Trump spokesperson said the reference is “a normal phrase that is used in everyday life,” Rivera interjected.
“Excuse me, I apologize to you and your audience, but I have to say that the spokesman’s excuse was absolute bullshit,” he said.
“It is lowdown and dirty,” he added. “Give me a break.”
Earlier this year, Rivera had nothing but high praise for Fox Corp. CEO Rupert Murdoch during an appearance on CNN after Murdoch announced he was turning over control of the company to his son Lachlan Murdoch.
Asked by host Laura Coates about his reaction to Rupert stepping down, Rivera — who left Fox News in July reportedly following an argument with late-night host and co-host of “The Five” Greg Gutfeld — had good things to say about his former boss.
“Well, he’s the founding father, not just of Fox News, but of a media empire that has made him one of the richest people on Earth. He’s a genius, I think,” Rivera said. “His great discovery is that half the people in the English-speaking world feel that they are ignored by the mainstream media on issues like abortion, immigration, gun reform, and climate change. He discovered that, he created this empire to serve that population, it has served him well.”
Continuing, Rivera noted that while Murdoch “got jammed up in that whole Dominion stuff,” a reference to Fox News’ recent defamation settlement with the voting machine company, he added that the former CEO has “always been nice to me, kind to me, generous.”
“When they cut my salary in half when they had the big cut back before the pandemic, I went up to say, I said, ‘Hey boss, this is not right. I went into combat for you and this and that,’ and he called downstairs, and he said, ‘Okay, restore part of that cut.’ So, I see him as a good boss. A vibrant, charismatic guy, still full of verve and energy at 92 years old,” he said, noting that Murdoch also “surrounded himself with brilliant people.”
Shortly after leaving Fox, Rivera went on ABC’s “The View” to complain about some of his former on-air colleagues.
At one point during the interview, Rivera said he had a “very toxic” relationship with a former fellow co-host of “The Five,” but he didn’t name any names. Unlike Tucker Carlson, who was unceremoniously taken off the air in late April, Rivera got a nice on-air send-off that included cake and fellow Fox personalities donning fake mustaches.
Though he didn’t identify anyone, Rivera’s departure came after sparring on-air for months with Gutfeld, with the two often getting into shouting matches on the air.