Longtime Fox News personality Geraldo Rivera complained that he was “cancelled” from hit panel show The Five, and hinted that his co-host Greg Gutfeld might have something to do with his absence.
“My appearances today and tomorrow on The Five have been canceled,” Rivera tweeted early Thursday morning.
“I’m sure there’s a good reason. Never fear, I’ll be back week after next. Stay safe and happy. Thanks 🙏”
Rivera and two other liberal rotating co-hosts, Harold Ford Jr. and Jessica Tarlov, replaced panelist Juan Williams on the show last year.
My appearances today and tomorrow on The Five have been canceled. I’m sure there’s a good reason. Never fear, I’ll be back week after next. Stay safe and happy. Thanks 🙏
— Geraldo Rivera (@GeraldoRivera) May 4, 2023
The mustachioed talking head has not appeared on the show since April 21, five days before he roasted Tucker Carlson about his abrupt firing from Fox News.
“I don’t wish ill on anybody, but there is no doubt-as I said at the time-Tucker Carlson’s perverse January 6 conspiracy theory was ‘bullshit,'” he tweeted the morning of April 26.
“Having lost the election President Trump incited an insurrection that sought to undermine our Constitutional process.”
Rivera was the only Fox News personalities to take a public shot at Carlson in the wake of his departure, a move that clearly infuriated Gutfeld, The Five’s most popular co-host.
I don’t wish ill on anybody, but there is no doubt-as I said at the time-Tucker Carlson’s perverse January 6 conspiracy theory was “bullshit.”
Having lost the election President Trump incited an insurrection that sought to undermine our Constitutional process.
— Geraldo Rivera (@GeraldoRivera) April 26, 2023
“You’re a class act Geraldo,” the comedian tweeted the same day. “A real man of the people.”
Rivera did not respond to Gutfeld’s taunt until over a week later, hours after posting about his “cancellation” from The Five, when he thanked his coworker for “the kind remarks.”
One Fox News source told The Daily Beast that Rivera’s remarks ruffled Gutfeld’s feathers enough spur his absence from the show.
However, other network insiders claimed that the other rotating hosts were scheduled to be in liberal seat all along.
Thank you @GregGutfeld for your kind remarks https://t.co/MQFoVmWFm7
— Geraldo Rivera (@GeraldoRivera) May 4, 2023
It’s not the first time Rivera and Gutfeld have publicly sparred. The pair tangled in mid-April, when the White House announced an EPA proposal to tighten emissions standards dramatically by 2032.
Rivera got under Gutfeld’s skin when he claimed that the $7,500 electric vehicle tax credit that went into effect last month, was “not a big deal” to American automobile buyers.
“I was gonna buy an EV Bentley,” he remarked while Gutfeld shook his head in disgust. “They offered me a $7,500 rebate. I said, I don’t need the $7,500.”
“Thank God you connect with our audience,” Gutfeld snipped.
“You just explained why people like you find it so easy to sermonize about electric vehicles, because you can afford it,” he continued.
“Are you attacking me?” Rivera asked hysterically, and Gurtfeld told him that he deserved it.
“The thing is, what I’m pointing out is, you just said “EV Bentley” to our audience, right?” Gutfeld hissed.
“Who has to pay for the charging stations? Our audience. Who has to pay for the transition from gas to electric stoves? Our audience.”
When Rivera asked who would pay for the cancer Americans would get from gas-guzzling vehicles, Gutfeld was floored.
“Oh God, you don’t even have the science to back that up,” he mocked.
“You have to bear the brunt of your beliefs, and you don’t because you can afford an EV Bentley. You’re telling our audience to suck on it!”
Conservative Twitter didn’t seem to care much about Rivera’s self-proclaimed cancellation.
“Hopefully, it is because you are about to be fired,” one person wrote.
“While you are entitled to say what you want, it doesn’t mean we want to listen to it, Mr. EV Bentley… I imagine Gutfeld is calling the shots as he should. He’s protecting ratings,” another replied.