OPINION | This article contains commentary that reflects the author's opinion.
During a segment with Dan Bongino, Geraldo Rivera loses it and calls Bongino a “Punk,” according to The Western Journal.
The news segment was featuring the currently escalating Israel-Palestinian conflict.
Rivera said that it was “shocking and outrageous to [him] that, in all the discussions of what’s happening in Israel, the fact that Palestinians are being killed at the rate of 15 or 20 times the death toll among the Israelis, including children.”
Rivera called the whole thing “abhorrent” and demanded a ceasefire.
Bongino said, “Geraldo, you do this every time. This is such garbage and I’m really — I’m really getting sick of it. You play this emotional game with the audience and use your position of responsibility to put out misinformation.”
Rivera hit back, “You know, stop attacking me, punk!”
“Address the issue! Do you have the guts to address the issue?”
“This is not about me. You didn’t come on the show to attack me.”
“You came on the show to talk about the issue.”
“Do you have a point about the issue?”
“I’m sick of you, Bongino!”
Rivera then throws a wadded-up piece of paper at the camera.
“I’m sick of you. You’re a punk!”
“I’m an out-of-control lunatic?” Rivera questioned.
“I’m a 10-time Emmy winner with deep experience in the Middle East.”
“Have you ever even been there? … I’ve covered every war since 1973.”
This @DBongino and @GeraldoRivera segment was completely off the rails 🔥😳 pic.twitter.com/I6AQnGCNtC
— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) May 20, 2021
Wow – wild!@GeraldoRivera is a typical progressive, using emption and deception – @dbongino uses logic and facts…
It's is because of people like Geraldo that the terrorists always come back and innocent children die… https://t.co/SEEYeXFJy4— Tony Shaffer (@T_S_P_O_O_K_Y) May 20, 2021
From The Western Journal:
What’s truly astounding here, too, is that Bongino’s weakness is usually … well, I definitely wouldn’t call him an “out-of-control lunatic,” but he’s a man a Starbucks barista might be inclined to suggest a decaf to, or maybe a nice cup of rooibos tea.
Here, Bongino is the picture of self-control, allowing the mustachioed one to self-destruct at the same time he was self-owning.
Hannity tried to get the segment under control (a fools errand at that juncture) by asking Rivera who fired the first rockets.
Rivera, instead, blamed Israel for a raid on the Al-Aqsa Mosque.
It’s worth noting that during another one of Rivera’s tantrums — one where he turned his back to the screen — Bongino managed to nail down the issue. “Geraldo Rivera doesn’t understand that Hamas doesn’t believe in Israel’s right to exist,” he said.
This isn’t just Rivera who believes this, mind you, but it gets to the issue with the extremist wing of the left which elevates a terrorist group to a geopolitical player that has a right to defend itself — even when Hamas initiated the attacks.
Rivera doesn’t get this despite the fact he’s covered every war since 1973. Contradict him and you’re a punk.
Perhaps sometime in the near future, Israel will find an unopened vault in Gaza where Hamas has put all of its documents pertaining to a peaceful solution in which they live in harmony with the Israelis in a functional two-state democracy. Rivera can go over there and do a live two-hour special leading up to the opening of the vault.
And then he’ll find that, in a repeat of 1986, the darned thing will be empty.
Until then, however, we’ll always have Dan Bongino — the human personification of Al Capone’s vault.
