Geraldo Rivera reunited with his daughter Simone over the weekend after the 21-year-old went through the traumatic experience of watching a soccer game in Paris when bombs went off on Friday.
“It was an amazing relief just to squeeze her, just to know she was safe,” he told “Fox & Friends” on Monday. Initially, Rivera couldn’t get reach his daughter on Friday night, leaving him to fear the worst.
Eventually, he learned that Simone and her friends were OK and they text messaged with each other until Rivera arrived in Paris over the weekend.
Rivera said he and his family mourns for families that weren’t as lucky. “This was a really, horrible blow to the soul of the French people,” he said.
Rivera said Simone and the other students in her college exchange program are speaking to counselors to fully comprehend and cope with what happened.
He praised the security at Stade de France for largely sparing mass devastation there as occurred in the Bataclan concert hall where the majority of the casualties occurred.
A cell of at least eight terrorists affiliated with ISIS killed 129 people in a series of coordinated attacks, including 87 at the Bataclan. Another 350 were wounded, 99 of them critically.
“This is a country that has to take itself off the canvas and take on these terrorists and they are doing exactly that,” he said.