Geraldo Rivera said Monday that President Joe Biden’s plan to combat gun violence was “preposterous.”
Rivera discussed the situation with Fox News host Martha MacCallum and used the city of Chicago — where gang members greatly outnumber police officers — as an example to argue that the scope of Biden’s proposed solution was not nearly wide enough to address the actual problem.
WATCH:
MacCallum opened Monday’s broadcast of “The Story” with polling data that indicated voters were not happy with the way Biden was handling rising crime rates.
“As a result, Democrats appear to be having a come-to-Jesus moment on this,” MacCallum said. She added, “The president is scrambling to get a handle on what’s going on.”
MacCallum then noted after introducing Rivera that he had previously attacked Biden’s plan, and called it “pathetic.” (RELATED: ‘Pathetic’: Geraldo Rivera And Dana Perino Pan Biden Gun Violence Speech That Sounds Like ‘Reading Back Somebody’s Fast Food Order’)
“I didn’t mean to be rude to the president, but it is preposterous when you compare the scale of what he’s offering to do with the nature of the problem,” Rivera said.
He added that since Biden’s speech there had been 40 murders in Chicago alone — most of which had claimed the lives of young black men.
“Homicide is the leading cause of death among young black men,” Rivera said. “In Chicago, there’s 117,000 gang members versus 12,000 or 13,000 cops. The gangsters outnumber the cops 10 to 1. To think a schoolyard program will do something to alleviate the blood flow — this is the civil rights issue of our day, there’s a ghetto civil war going on.”
According to a recent audit of Chicago’s gang tracking databases, the actual number of gang members is likely closer to 54,000 — which still amounts to more than four active gang members for every police officer on the street.
Homicide is the leading cause of death among young Black men in America. It is the #CivilRightsIssueOfOurTime. https://t.co/LVN4XCIXjw
— Geraldo Rivera (@GeraldoRivera) July 12, 2021
Rivera went on to say that he did support schoolyard programs. He added that he did not believe they would be enough to stem the rising tide of violent crime. Instead, he called for “massive federal and state involvement” and a national “stop and frisk” policy.
“The schoolyard programs are wonderful. They’re not going to stop this bloodshed, Martha,” he concluded.