Geraldo Rivera urged his longtime friend President Trump to stop doing what he described as being detrimental to democracy and admit defeat already to President-elect Joseph R. Biden.
“It is over. I want the president, my friend, the current president, the 45th president, to understand it is over,” the former talk show host and current Fox News fixture said Monday on the cable network.
Mr. Rivera, who has known Mr. Trump for decades, urged the president to abandon his failed race for reelection after the Electoral College officially confirmed his loss earlier Monday.
“The Electoral College has voted. The longer we drag this out, the more we damage the fabric of our democracy,” Mr. Rivera, 77, said on the Fox News program “The Story with Martha MacCallum.”
“It also damages the legacy of President Trump,” Mr. Rivera said, suggesting instead the president take a “victory lap” to celebrate the U.S. starting to vaccinate people against the novel coronavirus.
Charlie Kirk, a conservative activist who appeared on the program alongside the former “Geraldo” host, countered that he has the “exact opposite viewpoint” and argued the race is not over.
“There are still plenty of pending legal challenges,” argued Mr. Kirk, a co-founder of the Turning Point USA group.
“That is so dishonest,” Mr. Rivera replied, adding the Supreme Court has now twice rejected legal efforts made by Republican seeking to stop Mr. Biden from succeeding Mr. Trump next month.
Mr. Rivera also compared Mr. Trump to Al Gore, who ran as the Democratic presidential nominee 20 years before Mr. Biden in a hotly contested race that similarly went all the way to the high court.
“He had the grace and good sense when it was clear the Supreme Court was not going to go his way to walk away in a way that put the country ahead of his own political ambitions,” Mr. Rivera said of Mr. Gore.
Mr. Trump, meanwhile, “is instilling in these people the false sense that they have” been cheated, Mr. Rivera added.
Voting in the presidential race ended Nov. 3, and news outlets began to call the contest for Mr. Biden several days later. The Electoral College affirmed that victory Monday.
Mr. Trump and some fellow Republicans have claimed the presidential race was rigged absent any credible evidence to corroborate such a serious claim. Mr. Biden is set to succeed him on Jan. 20.
• Andrew Blake can be reached at ablake@washingtontimes.com.
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