Geraldo Rivera Tells All: Why He Left Fox News, Tensions With Greg Gutfeld, And Calling Out ‘Pathetic’ Tucker Carlson

Geraldo Rivera has been a mainstay on cable news televisions across the country for decades, a prolific career that took him from ABC to NBC and finally to Fox News, where he spent more than 20 years, first as a correspondent and then as co-host of The Five. The award-winning journalist and veteran foreign reporter signed off from Fox for the last time in June, quitting the network after he says he was fired from The Five.

Rivera spoke with Mediaite editor in chief Aidan McLaughlin and senior reporter Diana Falzone for this week’s episode of The Interview podcast — about why he finally decided to leave Fox, his on- and off-air conflicts with Greg Gutfeld and Tucker Carlson, the lawsuits plaguing the network over its coverage of the 2020 election, and the status of his old friendship with former President Donald Trump.

“I should have left a long time ago,” Rivera said. “But for various reasons, not the least of which was my own insecurity about where I would end up, I stuck around and I stayed too long at the dance.”

Rivera recalled taking a steep paycut when he joined Fox News from NBC in 2001 — accepting “less than half” of his multi-million dollar NBC contract — because he wanted to cover the Iraq War as a foreign correspondent. Roger Ailes obliged, and after joining Fox, Rivera embarked on a lengthy career as a foreign correspondent that took him to disaster zones in the U.S. and war zones abroad.

At the tail end of his time at the network, Rivera was named a co-host of The Five, a boisterous panel show that often places first in all cable news. He clashed with his more conservative co-hosts, and often faced personal attacks from Fox star Greg Gutfeld.

Rivera said he was suspended multiple times for the clashes. “They always took his side,” he explained. “I could sense that I was hanging by a thread.”

Still, he points to the continued success of The Five to conclude Fox made the right decision by letting him go: “They they made a very pragmatic decision, a business decision. And it looks in retrospect that they made the right decision.”

He continued:

Was I satisfied with how Fox handled the tensions? No. The other cast members were perceived to be far more significant to the overall thrust of the program than I was. And so I became a kind of collateral damage. If you look at how well that program has done since I’ve left, if anything, [ratings are] back up. So I can’t say that they’ve made the wrong decision.

Rivera was vocal about his frequent criticisms of Tucker Carlson, the conspiracy-minded host who was the network’s top star before he was fired earlier this year in the wake of the devastating $787.5 million settlement with Dominion Voting Systems. Fox now faces another defamation suit from Ray Epps, a Jan. 6 protestor who says Carlson falsely cast him as a federal agent.

“I was nauseous over Tucker Carlson’s premise that January 6 was an inside job,” Rivera said. “I was shocked and outraged.”

Rivera said he received calls from people within Fox thanking him for speaking out against Carlson and his coverage of the riot at the U.S. Capitol, which Carlson repeatedly suggested was a false flag attack in an effort to deflect blame from Trump and his supporters.

When asked why he thought Carlson got away with his controversial commentary for so long, Rivera put it simply: “Ratings.”

“He was very, very, very powerful,” Rivera said. “In discovery in the Dominion lawsuit, you see how arrogant he was, how contemptuous he was.”

“It was pathetic, really pathetic,” Rivera said. “He really got way too big for his britches. The worst thing about what he did was the ruthless pragmatism that he displayed. I’m going to do this because that’s what the audience wants. In other words, it wasn’t the malevolent media leading the audience. It was the audience leading the malevolent media.”

“What he did was unforgivable,” Rivera concluded, arguing Carlson expressed views he did not believe in to boost his ratings. “He made a mockery of the tenets of journalism.”

Rivera brought the candor he has always been known for to the wide-ranging interview. He also discussed Fox’s settlement with Dominion and the looming defamation case from Smartmatic, the state of his relationship with Trump, and what’s next for his career in media.

Download the full episode here, and subscribe to The Interview on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.

This episode was produced by Payton Selby and Brad Maybe.