Geraldo Rivera’s reputation always precedes him. Although he’s no longer giving away troop coordinates on live TV, he still gets into his fair share of embarrassing situations. This includes his recent comparison of Roger Ailes to the Revenant bear before waxing utterly poetic about the Fox News CEO’s ousting. And then there was the truly flabbergasting moment when Rivera said the Orlando shooting victims should’ve fought back, which makes one wonder whether he can think before speaking.
This week, Rivera has surprised folks in a different way. He called out his good friend, Donald Trump, who Rivera believes should stop blaming the media for those “2nd Amendment” remarks. And now he’s taking on the subject of Hillary Clinton’s private email server with unexpected results.
Rivera appeared on The O’Reilly Factor, which didn’t include an appearance from Bill O’Reilly himself, but guest host Eric Bolling. And Rivera distanced himself from partisan rhetoric (sort of) by proclaiming his moderate political stance in contrast to Bolling’s very conservative ways. That led to some conflict when Rivera posited that the Republicans need to get over Clinton’s email scandal already: “Why don’t Republicans just swallow their pride and say, ‘Okay, we were wrong about that, now let’s move onto something where there is probative value’?”
Rivera insisted he wasn’t trying to start an argument, but he was speaking strategically. He simply thinks that Republicans are wasting time on thinking about an investigation that, despite being reopened by the State Department, Rivera feels will go nowhere. Bolling held out hope that Wikileaks will release more emails that will tie Clinton to “knowledge of arms going to ISIS.” But Rivera says Republicans should concentrate instead on other subjects like the Clinton Foundation, which some emails indicated may have had influential links to the State Department.
While ABC News reports that the State Department says no improper conduct was found in those emails with the Clinton foundation, Rivera still feels this is worth exploring as a more fruitful controversy. Whether or not Rivera’s hunch is correct makes no difference. His recent pattern of unpredictable stances make for one hell of a watch, though.