Geraldo Rivera Threatens To Knock Out His Fox News Colleague Over Immigration Debate
Fox News in the post-Donald Trump world has finally turned into straight-up, unapologetic, trash TV that would make Jerry Springer proud. During a discussion revolving around Trump and his presidential campaign on The Five Monday, panelist and former tabloid TV host Geraldo Rivera got so pissed off after co-host Eric Bolling labeled him a sensationalist that he threatened to knock out Bolling. Rivera also called out Bolling for doing the same thing he does, essentially admitting on the air that all of the Fox on-air personalities just try to turn up the rhetoric and see who can say the most outrageous shit.
On any normal day, The Five is where you can go to wallow in the sewage of the right-wing echo chamber, as the show is sort of a kickoff for the average Fox viewer to get their night of outrage started. On Monday, they decided to go the extra mile and push it to insane levels by booking both Geraldo and Bill O’Reilly lackey Jesse Watters. You may recall that Watters made headlines earlier this month when he made a grandstanding appearance at the San Francisco City Council to chastise the elected officials over Kate Steinle’s death at the hands of an illegal immigrant. The guy with the most punchable face in the world was a key player in getting Rivera’s blood to boil Monday.
At one point in the program, Watters stated that President Obama has “blood on his hands” over Steinle’s death due to immigration policy and the existence of sanctuary cities in this country. When Rivera tried to debate him on the issue and tell him that he was out of line, Watters just smugly dismissed him, as he is wont to do. It helped that the rest of the panel was buying what Watters was selling.
Below is video of that encounter, courtesy of Media Matters:
If you liked that little tiff, then get ready for the main event. After Watters had spent about a minute blowing Trump, much to Bolling’s approval, Rivera chimed in and said that Trump is dealing with a high right now due to his racist remarks around immigration, but that will eventually come to pass. Watters followed up that nothing would come to pass due to Steinle’s death, causing Rivera to snap back that Watters is trying to exploit her death and her family. (Which he is. Blatantly.) Watters retorted by claiming Rivera is exploiting it by downplaying it. (Which doesn’t make sense, but, Fox News.)
This is when Bolling spoke up and made things even more chaotic. Ol’ Eric made sure to stand up for his boy Donald by saying that Trump has been proven right and that he is only trying to highlight the real problems with illegal immigration. When Rivera said that Trump’s rhetoric is just “exploiting and sensationalizing” the issue, Bolling responded that Rivera shouldn’t talk because he “exploits and sensationalizes everything!” Well, that was answered with Rivera saying that if Bolling weren’t his friend, he’d “knock him out right now!” He added that Bolling’s comments were “BS” and exclaimed, “What do you do? Where do you get your stuff from?”
Below is video of the segment, courtesy of Mediaite:
Beyond the evolution into Maury and Springer, this could be an example of Fox employees trying to decide who they should siplay their loyalties to. Fox News president Roger Ailes is apparently a big Trump supporter and loves his stance on immigration. However, Ailes’ boss Rupert Murdoch just lambasted Trump for his policy beliefs and comments. It could very well devolve into fisticuffs on Fox News sets before too long as Trump laps it up like the attention-seeking child he truly is.
