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Former Fox News anchor Geraldo Rivera has slammed his former friend, Donald Trump, over his administration’s immigration policies.
MSNBC’s Ari Melber asked Rivera for his reaction Wednesday after top podcaster Joe Rogan criticized the administration’s crackdown on international students on college campuses. Rogan’s comments come after some pro-Palestine student activists have been detained by ICE.
“They’re kicking students out that, like, write articles they don’t like,” Rogan had said Tuesday. “F****** crazy. Isn’t a university supposed to be a place where someone’s allowed to express themselves and have opinions?”
He added: “Deporting people because you don’t like who they’re criticizing? Like, that gets kind of shifty.”
Rivera echoed the sentiment, giving a fiery critique of the Trump administration.
“Of all the things the President has done, I believe that if what appears to be happening in the Mideast does happen, and brings about the expulsion of Hamas from Gaza, I think that he'll get the Nobel Peace Prize,” Rivera said. “But I also think this is the most humiliating, harmful, racist government policy I've ever seen executed. “
He added: “The targeting of Latinos is something that is absolutely appalling. They walk around now - the laborers of Long Island, worried that because they’re Mexican, they’re going to get scooped up, their lives are going to be ruined.”
“It’s really disgusting, it’s lowbrow, it’s something that I believe is shameful in every regard,” he continued.
White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson called Rivera an “idiot” in response to his comments.
“Geraldo Rivera is an idiot and he should apologize to Latino Americans for conflating them with illegal aliens who are lawfully being detained and deported,” Jackson said.
In March, Tufts University doctoral student Rümeysa Öztürk was arrested and detained for more than six weeks. Öztürk had written a pro-Palestine op-ed last year. Mahmoud Khalil, a prominent pro-Palestine activist and Columbia University graduate, was arrested that same month and detained for more than 100 days.
Several university associations sued the Trump administration over its crackdown on students following the arrest of Khalil, Öztürk and others, the Associated Press reports. In court, the associations argued the students’ First Amendment right to free speech has been violated. Government attorneys have argued the administration is not targeting protesters.
President Trump has vowed to carry out the “largest deportation operation in American history.” This has included an increase in immigration raids across the U.S., which sparked mass protests in Los Angeles earlier this year.
Rivera, once close with Trump, turned on him in 2024 and endorsed his challenger, former Vice President Kamala Harris, for president.
“Former President Trump is a sore loser who cannot be trusted to honor the Constitution,” Rivera posted on X last October. “That is why I am voting for Kamala Harris to be our 47th President.”
In that same post, Rivera said Trump was a “loyal friend” during his first term in office, which lasted from 2017 to 2021. Rivera said the president gave him “regular access.” In return, Rivera said he gave Trump “the benefit of most doubts.”
But Rivera said his opinions changed as Trump and his allies claimed, without evidence, that former President Joe Biden did not win the 2020 election and that the results were fraudulent.
“If you are a Republican, Donald Trump has made a liar of you,” Rivera wrote last year. “He has coaxed and intimidated tens of millions into pretending he was reelected in 2020, and that the election was stolen.”
