Geraldo Rivera has been on a media tour after exiting Fox News late last month. 770 KTTH host Jason Rantz isn’t a fan of the statements Rivera is making, or the man himself.
During The Jason Rantz Show, the Seattle-based host shared that he’s “never been a fan” of Rivera’s, and believes he’s not good on TV. He admitted that his view of the 80-year-old was molded by an interaction earlier in his career.
Rantz claimed that as a producer at KLSX in Los Angeles in the mid-2000s, Rivera appeared on Adam Carolla’s program for an apparent audition to join the station and the interaction soured his opinion of the longtime personality.
“I was told by his handler to basically do a tryout. He was the rudest, most egotistical person I have ever met. You know how I sometimes — I mean it but I say it in a joking way, like don’t make eye contact with me? He literally had that as a rule,” shared Rantz. “And I overheard him because he was struggling to do a solo show…I walk in to hand him something. But I overheard as I was walking into the studio — it was a large studio so he didn’t see me. But his handler said ‘Hey, you might want to bring on maybe some of the other people in the studio’, because he was struggling. I’ll never forget that he goes and I’m almost quoting word for word ‘Who gives a — about what they have to say?’
“He did it in the most demeaning possible way. And it’s not even that he’s wrong. It’s the way he did it. It’s ‘No one cares what you think. Turn off your microphone. It’s the way that he chose to do it. That was just so demeaning and condescending. That’s just his personality maybe. But who wants to be around that?”
The 770 KTTH host took umbrage with the statements Rivera made to CNN’s Alisyn Camerota. Rivera said he was “muzzled” by Fox News. Rantz argued that if there is one media outlet that doesn’t muzzle its talent, it’s Fox.
