Geraldo Rivera left Fox News in 2016 after working there for two decades. Geraldo is currently on a “media tour” and has been complaining about the events that he alleges led to his termination from “The Five,” which led him to leave the network.
Rivera complained to NewsNation presenter Chris Cuomo, telling him that his fights with well-liked FOX personality Greg Gutfeld were the primary cause of his termination from “The Five.”
“Fox left me. They fired me from the number one rated show ‘The Five.’ After they fired me, I said, ‘Well, wait a second. You know, I don’t want to work here anymore.’ If you are firing me from the number one show, what are you going to do?” Rivera said. “After they fired me, they gave me a plethora of options, other programs I could do … but I said, ‘No, I don’t want to do that.’”
After former primetime host Tucker Carlson’s appraisal of the violence at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, Rivera claimed that things changed for him at Fox News.
“When Tucker Carlson came up with his bizarre notion that Jan. 6 was an inside job, that it was federal informants who were causing trouble, that it wasn’t the insurrection that the rest of us saw, I said that that was a bunch of BS. I called BS on it,” Rivera said.
“I got a call as soon as that was published in The Washington Post from Fox executives, who said, ‘You’re suspended. You’re not supposed to speak to the press unless you clear it with us’ — which, of course, is Catch-22 because they never clear it,” he added.
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Last week, Rivera made an appearance on the ABC chat show “The View” and said he had a “toxic relationship” with a co-host he had on “The Five,” though he avoided naming any specifics.
Greg Gutfeld and Rivera had been exchanging blows on-air for months, frequently engaging in yelling matches.
The 79-year-old claimed that Fox News offered to switch him to another program once it became clear that he could no longer host “The Five,” but he turned them down and stated he would not accept being “demoted” from the most watched cable news program on television.
“If you fired me from the No. 1 show, then I’m going to quit. And that’s basically what happened,” Rivera said.
Joy Behar questioned Rivera about the “toxic” person, in an evident dig at former co-host Jesse Watters, by saying, “Smeshy Shwaters.”
“I thought it was very unfair that I was not judged objectively in our disputes, but rather he was always favored,” he said.
When questioned if it was Judge Jeanine Pirro, Rivera replied that he had truly met and fallen in love with her.
During another segment of the program, Rivera declared that he could “never forgive” Carlson for his coverage of January 6 in which he inferred the presence of government agent provocateurs in the audience.
During a recent appearance on comedian and commentator Russell Brand’s podcast, Carlson claimed to have spoken with Steven Sund, the Capitol Police chief on the day of the incident, but that Sund was sacked before the interview could be broadcast.
Carlson also commended the former president’s position on Ukraine, stating that he appears to be the only significant political figure in Washington at the moment who opposes the conflict and wants it to end.
Rivera reportedly found it to be too much.
“Due respect to Tucker Carlson, but he’s as full of s**t about Ukraine as he was about January 6th,” he tweeted. “His smiley face doesn’t change fact Russia invaded sovereign Ukraine; 1000’s are dead, including women & children, the world order is assailed and Putin is a punk.”