The former Fox News host and one-time Trump supporter Geraldo Rivera said Monday that he thinks Donald Trump‘s rally at Madison Square Garden on Sunday will be remembered as the moment that ended his 2024 campaign.
“I think it will be famous for ending President Trump’s meteoric campaign to be reelected,” Rivera told CNN‘s Wolf Blitzer. “I think that the surveys, the polls will show that this was the time, this was the moment where things turned on Donald Trump.”
Rivera tore into the comedian and podcast host Tony Hinchcliffe, who spoke at Trump’s rally on Monday and drew swift backlash for describing Puerto Rico as a “floating island of garbage.” Hinchcliffe also made a number of other racist jokes about Hispanics, Jews, and Black people.
“The first thing I thought of when I heard him was, how dare he?” Rivera said. “A floating island of garbage?”
He went on to reference Trump’s xenophobic and anti-immigrant comments, including his claim that migrants are “poisoning the blood” of the country; that migrants who commit murder introduce “bad genes” into the country; and his pledge to ramp up deportations from his first day in office.
“There is no reason a Latino American should vote for Donald Trump,” Rivera told Blitzer. “He has disqualified himself by surrounding himself with hateful, ugly rhetoric. These racist remarks have divided this nation. They’ve made people feel embattled. They’ve made people worry about their future, their children. It is something that is beyond the pale.”
Fox News cohost Geraldo Rivera in New York City on August 24, 2012. Rivera said Trump’s Madison Square Garden rally is the moment that ended his “meteoric” campaign.
Michael Loccisano/Getty Images
Rivera, who is now a contributor on News Nation, went on to say that Trump’s comments are “not politics … This is hate speech, and I have had it.”
“You know, Madison Square Garden is famous for a lot of things,” he continued. “I think it will be famous for ending President Trump’s meteoric campaign to be reelected. I think that the surveys, the polls will show that this was the time, this was the moment where things turned on Donald Trump.”
Rivera also came out swinging Sunday evening against the candidate he once supported, following Hinchcliffe’s description of Puerto Rico as a “floating island of garbage.”
“F–k these racists,” he wrote on X, formerly Twitter. “Latino men of good will, have pride in yourselves and your ancestors. A vote for Trump is a vote against self-respect.”
Hinchcliffe defended his remarks after drawing intense backlash from the public and from politicians, including those in New York, which is home to more than one million Puerto Ricans.
“These people have no sense of humor,” Hinchcliffe wrote on X. “Wild that a vice presidential candidate would take time out of his ‘busy schedule’ to analyze a joke taken out of context to make it seem racist.”
The Trump campaign, meanwhile, distanced itself from Hinchcliffe amid the backlash.
“This joke does not reflect the views of President Trump or the campaign,” said Danielle Alvarez, a senior advisor for the campaign.
Trump’s running mate, Ohio Senator JD Vance, said during a rally Monday that he hadn’t heard Hinchcliffe’s joke but said people should “stop getting so offended.”
“Maybe it’s a stupid, racist joke,” he said. “Maybe it is not. But we have to stop getting so offended at every little thing can a United States of America.”
