Geraldo wants Americans to focus on Republican Trump enablers, not the dictatorship pledge
In a debate over whether Donald Trump's fantasies about having a dictatorship were serious enough to warrant the past week of concern, former Fox host Geraldo Rivera said that the focus should instead be put on Republican lawmakers in the House and Senate who continued to enable Trump.
Speaking to CNN's Jim Acosta with former Mike Pence adviser Olivia Troye, Rivera said that they should be focusing on how Trump has already behaved like a dictator.
"Well, on Jan. 6th, he revealed, after two months of similar buildup to this process, that he's willing to stab the Constitution in the back to achieve his goal of staying in office," said Rivera. "That's what we should be focused on. We should be focused on all of those Republicans who, after Jan. 6th, closed ranks like Kevin McCarthy."
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He recalled that on and after Jan. 6, McCarthy gave a floor speech saying he was disgusted. He told the lawmakers under him that they were all done with Trump. Then he went crawling back to Mar-a-Lago. Former Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY) claims McCarthy rushed to Trump's side because he "wasn't eating." Instead, Trump moved McCarthy from his call to abandon Trump, to forcing the then-minority leader to take a photo as they yucked it up at the club. The photo posted to social media showed the caucus Trump was still pulling the strings.
"And then the entire Republican Party virtually, maybe not Mike Pence or Olivia, his former aide, but the entire Republican Party had enforced voluntary amnesia," said Rivera. "They forgot how Donald Trump behaved on Jan. 6th. They forgot that he tried to impede the constitutional order. And, yet, he is still overwhelmingly the Republican probable nominee for the presidency of the United States. How can that happen? How can all of America be complicit in this scandalous conduct, Jim?"
Acosta agreed it was a big question before pivoting to one of Rivera's favorite people, Al Capone, who Trump name-dropped again in a speech Saturday. He asked why Trump seems to idolize the mafia leader.
Rivera dismissed it, saying it was nothing more than more "flamboyant rhetoric" from Trump. The "humble brag" from the ex-president is that he was indicted four times whereas Capone was only indicted once. Trump is either boasting he's worse than a mafia boss or he's somehow better about being caught.
Rivera said he's not embarrassed by the empty vault moment with Capone nor is he embarrassed about his former friendship with Trump
"When I look back on it — he is what he is," said Rivera. "If people want to vote for him, they have to know that they are absolutely allowing someone who flaunted his opposition to the Constitution of the United States. They want that person to be president."
He explained that he hasn't spoken to Trump since Nov. 13, 2020, and he doesn't anticipate they'll speak again, "because I'm absolutely opposed to him."
He went on to issue a kind of call to arms, saying "People have to wake up and stop, you know, being alarmist. We've got to fight. You've got to -- we have to understand what the odds are, what the stakes are, what the choices are when you have Joe Biden on the one hand and Donald Trump on the other. People have to be clear-eyed about this. What's going to happen? Look what happened! Just one brief P.S. Look what happened to the Supreme Court of the United States because people lost sight of what was really important."
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