Former Fox News host Geraldo Rivera recently stunned CNN when asked about Donald Trump’s possible selection of Dan Bongino to lead the Secret Service, which has been slammed for its egregious failure to protect the president-elect during the assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania earlier this year. Despite he and Bongino having previously disagreed on various issues, Geraldo praised the former secret service agent’s competence.
“I wanted to ask you about Dan Bongino because I’m sure that you saw that he is being floated as Secret Service Director, the possibility of…” the CNN host asked, before being interrupted by Rivera breaking out into laughter. She then said, “I mean, there you go. And I just want to be clear for our viewers who aren’t familiar, you two sparked a lot of talks. And man, am I being understated when I say that. How would you feel about him being Secret Service director?”
Illustrating the tension between he and Bongino, Rivera responded, “I can’t imagine anyone who I feel I feel more fiercely combative with than Dan Bongino. If he were to walk into a bar and I was having a beer, you know, we probably square off. We disagree on everything, you know, we, you know, I think he has his own set of facts. I think he’s provocateur.”
However, Rivera changed the the direction of his commentary, applauding the admirable qualities about Bongino. “But I go back. I go back to what I said about may defeat. I have no issue at all with his honesty, his credibility, his character, his patriotism, his love of the Secret Service. I think all those things are positive for Bongino.”
Regardless, the former Fox News host maintained, like with all of Trump’s cabinet, it is to be seen whether his picks can effectively run the complex government agencies they have been tasked with managing. “And, you know, I think that in some ways, all of these people in the cabinet, and you can name others as well, Dr Oz, are great on TV. They are bigger than life. They’re great communicators. I see where the President-Elect is going with this cabinet. Can they do the job?”
Geraldo continued, “You know, the day-to-day, the administrative stuff running these businesses, and they are giant businesses, even though they’re government agencies, you know, I guess we’ll see some won’t.” Pivoting back to Bongino, he said, “Let me put it this way, if I was a target and Bongino was on the job I feel that Bongino would keep me safe, he would do the job.”
The American Tribune reported on less friendly coverage of Trump’s cabinet picks, where “The View” has been forced to issue several major contractions live on air to avoid legal trouble. Co-host Sunny Hostin was forced to say during a recent segment, “I have a legal note. Matt Gaetz has long denied all allegations and has not been charged with any crime. Gaetz previously dismissed allegations that he paid for sex saying that, quote, “Someone is trying to re-categorize my generosity to ex-girlfriends as something more untoward. Another legal note, Pete Hegseth’s lawyer said he paid the woman in 2023 to head off the threat of a baseless lawsuit. He has denied any wrongdoing.” Joy Behar joked, “Just call the show ‘Legal Note’ from now on.”
Watch Geraldo Rivera’s surprising comments below:
Note; The featured image credit is a screenshot from the embedded video.
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