US President Donald Trump enters the stage during a rally at Butler High School in Vandalia, Ohio, US, October 3, 2026. REUTERS/Nathan Howard
Longtime friend of President Donald Trump Geraldo Rivera thinks that President Donald Trump is growing more and more desperate.
Trump is headed to red states that are now dangerously close to electing Democrats on Nov. 3. While Trump pledged he'd be campaigning every day for Republicans, it appears there are many GOP candidates who don't want to be seen with him.
Speaking to CNN on Monday, co-host Brianna Keilar asked Rivera, a former Fox News host, whether Trump's efforts to "barnstorm" red states were a "Hail Mary" or something else.
"I see it as desperation more than anything else," he said. He cited Latino voters as a good example. "Anyone who voted Republican — well not everyone — but two out of three have now decided to go the other way. Back, in many cases, to the Democrats. From Florida to Texas, to Arizona, California. I think that huge Latino belt in the southern part of the country is going to go overwhelmingly, overwhelmingly for the Democrats."
Trump approval among Latino voters ranks at about 27 percent, according to a new NBC News/Telemundo poll taken at the end of September, Keilar cited. Disapproval is at 69 percent. She asked if he thought that was enough to really make a difference.
"I think cost of living is very important to voters. So is the war in Iran that the president started with no clear idea how to end. But I think really, if you were to ask me in my heart of hearts, Brianna, I think it is the absolute cruelty, the abject cruelty with which the Trump administration has administered its immigration policy."
He suggested that the only way that Republicans can ever have any hope of salvaging the Latino voters of the future would be to abandon Trump's abusive techniques.
"I don't think the president is helping at all in this," he said, commenting on Ohio's U.S. Senate race where Democratic ex-Sen. Sherrod Brown could unseat Sen. Jon Husted. The race there is running fairly even.
Rivera said that it appears to him Trump "seems to be doubling down on it. He wants to have the whole state wired. And this one issue in the case of our senate race here, Sherrod Brown, has been catapulted to the front of this race, largely because of the concern over data centers and how controversial they are."
Brown is concerned they will take power and water from people in the state and further drive up costs.
"And the president is saying, you know ... he's implying that he would like to see many more. And that freaks out a lot of people," said Rivera.
The fact that Trump is hanging out in midwestern red states rather than battleground states, "tells us that there is within the inner sanctum of the Republican Party, a kind of desperation brewing," Rivera said. "You know, tomorrow is the last day to register to vote and the first day for voting. But I just think that this could be that kind of blue wave that gives Republicans shudders."