A visibly angry Geraldo Rivera threatened to knock out his Fox News colleague Eric Bolling on today’s episode of The Five .
The two journalists, along with co-host Jesse Watters sitting in for Greg Gutfeld , got into a heated argument over illegal immigration and Donald Trump’s controversial comments about same.
The Celebrity Apprentice runner-up on Trump’s former NBC franchise has been appearing more often on the highly rated five-member panel show that airs weekdays at 5 p.m. Eastern since the Fox News Channel parted ways with Bob Beckel .
Describing himself in the past as a militant moderate as far as his political views are concerned, Rivera seems to be an advocate for amnesty and open borders and has participated in several recent contentious debates with Ann Coulter on the subject.
Earlier in the segment, Bolling got things rolling when he insisted that conservative pundits should stop bashing Donald Trump and instead focus on defeating the liberal/progressive agenda put forth by the Democrats.
As the discussion continued, Waters chimed in that Trump is surging in the polls because many Americans are fed up with a “skinny community organizer” running the country into the ground and that’s why a portion of the electorate seem to be gravitating toward the brash real estate mogul and reality TV star.
See the entire segment embedded below.
As the temperature began rising in the studio, Rivera, 72, deemed Watters’ comment very disrespectful to the president. He then accused Watters of exploiting the Kate Steinle murder by a suspect who was a five-time deported felon in the sanctuary city of San Francisco, an incident which Geraldo claimed had “nothing to do” with immigration.
Watters responded by insisting that Rivera was himself exploiting the murder by downplaying it. When Rivera again accused Trump of exploiting the [illegal] immigration issue, Bolling — in an apparent allusion to Geraldo’s long flamboyant career on television — declared that “from a guy that exploits and sensationalizes everything, really?”
That’s when Rivera lost his temper.
“Are you talking to me? You’re lucky you’re my friend or I would knock you out right now. That’s absolute BS; that’s absolute bogus BS.”
Bolling kept his cool in the exchange, calmly noting that “we can take this up later.”
To defuse the situation, co-host Kimberly Guilfoyle irreverently asked the Fox control room to cut to a “Bowflex” commercial.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V2sLeDmVItc
Aside from Geraldo Rivera, the Donald Trump presidential candidacy seems to stir up the passions on The Five .
Last month, America’s sweetheart (or perhaps former sweetheart) Dana Perino, who served as White House press secretary in the George W. Bush administration, had an uncharacteristic live meltdown on The Five when she accused Eric Bolling of pandering to Trump merely so he could become a contestant on The Celebrity Apprentice .
Bolling again kept his composure during the exchange. The ordinarily soft-spoken and reasonable Perino was blasted on Facebook by outraged The Five viewers after the confrontation but never apologized to Bolling on the air, however.
Do you think that the Geraldo Rivera-Eric Bolling on-air altercation had the potential for actual workplace violence?
[Photo by Neilson Barnard/Getty Images Entertainment]
