Toxic masculinity combined with current events Wednesday to create a very entertaining train wreck during Sean Hannity’s Fox News show. And it was all thanks to the open hostility between pundits Geraldo Rivera and Dan Bongino, which turned into an aggro shouting match that ended with Rivera calling Bongino a “son of a bitch” and a “punk.”
You can watch the whole thing at the bottom of this post.
Bongino and Rivera were on to talk about the ongoing protests in Brooklyn Center, Minnesota, where 20-year-old Daunte Wright was killed by police officer Kimberly Potter, who claims she meant to fire her taser but accidentally used her gun, during a traffic stop on Sunday. The protests are currently in their fourth night and have been marked by violent clashes between police and protesters, and also sporadic vandalism and looting.
Hannity was not in favor of the protests. Rivera, for his part, was at least somewhat sympathetic to them, and took the position that police officers should consider changing up how they carry tasers and firearms in order to avoid the confusion Brooklyn Center police say led to Wright’s death. But when it was Bongino’s turn to speak, things got pretty heated.
Now, it was pretty obvious from the start that Rivera and Bongino don’t particularly like one another. Bongino began with a sarcastic “I don’t even know how to respond to that,” while Rivera angrily talked over him with demands to “respond with facts” and said Bongino is “nothing but a name-caller.” So perhaps it won’t come as a surprise to learn that things quickly devolved into a train wreck.
“I never talk when he talks because I like him to just say these things, because they’re so easy to refute,” Bongino said. He went on to disagree with Rivera’s suggestion, arguing that it would put police officers in greater danger. But he also peppered his comments with personal insults, like “he doesn’t know any of that,” which naturally prompted Rivera to shout over him in response while Hannity attempted to tamp things down.
No such luck though. “Take a valium. You’ve been talking forever,” Bongino said to Rivera. “You really gotta pipe down. My gosh, you’re a 70-year-old-man. Calm down. Get ahold of yourself.”
Bongino continued with his points but couldn’t help but slip in some more jabs, telling Rivera “You’ve reported on it, [but] you don’t know. So maybe a little bit of humble pie, back off, stop telling everyone about your great reporting, deal with facts, and realize you don’t know what you think you know, you just know what you think you reported on. I don’t pretend to be a journalist, I’m an opinion maker. Stop pretending to be a cop,” Bongino said.
Things went like this for another couple of minutes, with the two men interspersing lengthy bickering with occasional arguments about policing in America. But then Bongino said that nationwide protests are happening “because people like Geraldo continue to pump out a race narrative with no data to back it up at all.”
At that point, Rivera lost it and the final minute or so of the segment was just the two men shouting over one another, with Rivera increasingly exasperated by Bongino’s denial of racism in policing. And then this happened:
Bongino: You just want to see the country burn.
Rivera: I want to see the country burn? You son of a bitch, I want to see the country burn? You punk.
Bongino: Yeah.
Rivera: You’re nothing but a punk. You’re a punk. You’re a punk.
Bongino: You wouldn’t tell me that to my face.
Watch the whole spectacular mess below:
WATCH: Geraldo absolutely loses it on live TV, calls @dbongino a “son of a b*tch” and a “punk”
BONGINO: “You wouldn’t tell me that to my face” pic.twitter.com/i3d9VcfJnP
— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) April 15, 2021
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