In a post on X, formerly Twitter, political commentator and former Fox News journalist Geraldo Rivera blasted former President Donald Trump and endorsed Vice President Kamala Harrisin the 2024 election.
"Former President Trump is a sore loser who cannot be trusted to honor the Constitution," Rivera said Monday in a post that has been viewed over 473,000 times as of 12:30 p.m. "That is why I am voting for Kamala Harris to be our 47th President."
Rivera's post recalled his time on Trump's final season of NBC's Celebrity Apprentice. He said he previously regarded Trump as a "loyal friend" whose first term in office was "underrated."
When Newsweek reached out for comment, Trump's political adviser Steven Cheung responded, "Who's Geraldo? - me."
"I had a front row seat as a finalist on that final season and marveled at his audacity with his checkered past to seek the highest office in the land," Rivera posted to X.
He noted in the post, however, they have not spoken since 2020, after Trump's "narrow lost (sic) to Joe Biden." Rivera said Trump called him at his home ten days after he lost the 2020 election. He said on X that Trump asked, "what he would do if the vote count remained against him?"
"As I reported on Fox News that same morning, Friday the 13th, he told me he was a reasonable man and would do the right thing if that time came," Rivera posted. "It never did. Instead, President Trump embarked on an increasingly menacing campaign to discredit the 2020 election."
Rivera said people may be inclined to vote for the Republican nominee because of his calls for tax cuts, tariffs on China, pulling out of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) or to build the U.S.-Mexico border wall.
"However, you justify voting for Trump, adopting his big lie about the stolen election makes you a liar," Rivera posted. "Better to admit he lost last time but that you don't care because a Harris presidency would be a disaster, or you admire his defiance in the face of an assassin's bullet."
In 2019, Rivera condemned Trump in comment to the New York Times after the former president verbally attacked Representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (New York-D), Ilhan Omar(Minnesota-D), Rashida Tlaib(Michigan-D), and Ayana Pressley(Massachusetts-D).
In September 2020, Rivera told PEOPLE Magazine that Trump is a "loyal" friend, but quickly noted they don't always "agree."
"I support the president, but I don't endorse the president...he doesn't always heed my advice," Rivera said at the time. "But I'm honored that the President of the United States, the most powerful person on earth, listens to a [guy] that's been knocking around television for half a century."
In 2023, Rivera said on an appearance on The View that he would "dedicate whatever energy I have left in the profession to ensure that he is not reelected president ever."
"Everyone knows I was close to Donald Trump for decades. You can boo or cheer. We came up together in New York from the 1970s," Rivera said on the show.
When The View co-host Joy Beharasked, "What happened" to Trump, Rivera responded, "What happened was he lost the election and became a crazy guy."
Rivera has also condemned Trump's comments about immigration, writing that the former president saying immigrants are "poisoning" the country harkens "back to the Nazi-era" and is "disgusting."
In August, Rivera called Trump's comments about Harris' race "nasty and unnecessary" in an interview with "NewsNation Now."
"Kamala Harris has been a Black woman and an Indian woman her whole life," Rivera said. "She has self-identified herself as a Black Asian woman, as a Black woman whose mother was Asian."
Rivera has previously said that Trump's actions leading up to the Jan. 6 insurrection "was so unforgivable." He reiterated this in his post on Monday, calling out Trump for having "incited and unleashed the violent attack on the center of democracy."
"As his followers trashed that sacred space, he was on the phone urging Vice President Mike Pence essentially to overturn the will of the American people. Pence refused to put Trump ahead of the Constitution," Rivera posted. "Trump stabbed the Constitution in the back."
