Geraldo Rivera on Thursday shared his visceral response to President-elect Donald Trump’s nomination of the now-former Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) as attorney general.
“When I heard that Matt Gaetz was picked to be attorney general, I threw up in my mouth,” Rivera said on NewsNation in his role as the channel’s correspondent-at-large.
“I think it is a horrible, creepy choice. I have no idea why he did it,” added the former Fox News personality, who despite being a longtime friend of Trump ended up endorsing Democratic candidate Kamala Harris in the 2024 election.
Trump’s other picks are “controversial” but can be defended, Rivera continued, before pointing out that Gaetz would as attorney general have “access to the files” of the investigations into himself.
Gaetz “is the epitome of everything that is rotten in Washington” and is “privileged, entitled, backstabbing,” Rivera said later in video shared online by Mediaite.
He also predicted there is “no way the Republicans in the Senate will confirm this man.”
In a separate discussion with NewsNation’s Chris Cuomo, Rivera described Trump’s picks as “an earthquake.”
Trump has tapped Fox News’ Pete Hegseth as defense secretary and anti-vaccine conspiracy theorist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to run the health department.
Trump has said Kennedy will be allowed to “go wild” on health in his role.
“This is blowing up Washington D.C. and the selection particularly of Matt Gaetz to run the Justice Department is the giant f-you to the critics,” Rivera said.
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Gaetz is “perennially under investigation,” “barely a lawyer” and a “clearly incompetent person,” he added.
On X, formerly Twitter, Rivera ripped Gaetz as “a douche.”
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