NEW YORK — Fox News veteran Geraldo Rivera tweeted that he’s bummed out by election-deniers and done with his old pal Donald Trump, who keeps egging them on. The 79-year-old Brooklyn native’s declaration was met with disdain by those who remain faithful to the former president and his 2020 election claims.
“Election Deniers depress me,” Rivera tweeted Wednesday. “I blame President Trump for his shameful campaign to slander and undermine American faith in our elections.”
Rivera noted there were things the 45th president did while in office that he supports, but added, “I could never support him again.”
Rivera, a Brooklyn Law School alumni, concluded in his tweet that “without fealty to the Constitution,” America becomes a second-rate nation.
Even after Trump lost his 2020 bid for reelection by 7 million votes, Rivera stood by his fellow former New Yorker and assured the public via social media that Trump would come to his senses.
In November, Rivera said after a “heartfelt phone call” with his “friend Donald Trump,” that the defeated president assured him he is a “realist” who’ll do what’s right. He also suggested to Trump on Twitter that the time had come to “move in with grace and dignity.”
Trump, however, went another direction and doubled down on his insistence that the election had been stolen from him in ways he’s failed to explain by perpetrators who remain unclear.
Nevertheless, Trump loyalists attacked Rivera on Twitter Thursday in support of the former president’s conspiracy theories.
In addition to expressing confusion over how, in some states, Trump was leading the election at one point, then fell behind as more ballots were counted, those followers attacked Rivera personally.
“Geraldo is 2nd rate...maybe 3rd,” tweeted one MAGA supporter.
Rivera frequently finds himself at odds with far right-wing Republicans, including his colleagues at Fox News, who sometimes take issue with his relatively moderate positions. Last month, he offered a backhanded defense of GOP supporters who believe Trump was robbed in 2020.
“That doesn’t make them ignorant or racist, It makes them disappointing,” he said. “They’re drunk on Trump Koolaid, and either don’t believe he lost, or worse, don’t care.”
A Fox News poll taken shortly after the 2020 ballots were counted found that 68% of Republicans believe Trump was denied an election win. That same survey claimed 56% of respondents believed Trump’s challenge of the election outcome was weakening American Democracy.
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