Fox News’s Geraldo Rivera is calling for President Trump to be impeached, accusing the president of lighting “a fuse that exploded in the U.S. Capitol” in the wake of the violent riot in the U.S. Capitol last week.
Rivera, who had previously been a close Trump ally, said in a video shared on Twitter Wednesday that he had a “eureka moment,” adding that “my loyalty toward Donald Trump, my old friend, was misplaced when it comes to what happened last Wednesday.”
He also referenced a Tuesday tweet in which he described Trump as “a loyal friend hounded without mercy by Democrats intent on destroying him from day one.”
“That’s what happened, they hounded him from day one. But then he lost the election, and losing the election made Donald Trump crazy. It revealed the disfunction in him that I had refused to see,” Rivera said in the video.
“President Trump then unleashed a mob to make war on their own government,” he added. “Five of that mob to their doom. They died.”
The riot at the Capitol resulted in at least five deaths, including a Capitol Police officer and a woman shot by a different officer outside of the House chamber.
Rivera on Wednesday also said House Republican Conference Chairwoman Liz Cheney (Wyo.) is “right” after she announced Tuesday that she plans to vote to impeach Trump for inciting the violent mob.
“Donald Trump is richly deserving of impeachment,” Rivera said. “She’s the most prominent congressional Republican to announce her support for the impeachment of Donald Trump. As I said, she’s right, without shame or remorse. Trump incited that mob to invade our sacred space. Maybe he beats the rap, but there’s no doubt that he did it.”
Rivera also noted former President Clinton’s 1998 impeachment, adding that “Donald Trump 22 years later lit a fuse that exploded in the U.S. Capitol, unleashed and incited by Trump, that mob killed five people, and it paralyzed our government.”
“Shame on him. He should be impeached. If the Senate wants to acquit him, that’s their business, but he should know that history is judging him,” Rivera said.
The House on Wednesday is set to vote to impeach Trump for his role in the attack at the Capitol, which interrupted Congress’s certification of President-elect Joe Biden’s Electoral College victory.
Rivera has previously criticized Trump’s unproven claims of election fraud following the election, saying last month that the president was acting like an “entitled frat boy” since losing a “bitterly contested election.”