Echoing her fellow conservatives who oppose the prisoner swap that secured Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl’s release, Fox News personality Kimberly Guilfoyle said Friday that the POW was lucky he wasn’t found by his fellow soldiers before the exchange. Otherwise, Guilfoyle said, Bergdahl may have been brought home “in a body bag.”
Guilfoyle’s fellow Fox colleague Geraldo Rivera tried his best to defend Bergdahl’s release during a discussion on “Outnumbered,” arguing that the soldier’s alleged desertion doesn’t change the equation.
“I don’t care who Bergdahl is. We don’t leave him behind,” Rivera said.
Indeed, even many of the Republicans and conservatives who have questioned the legal and national security ramifications of the prisoner exchange have nevertheless greeted Bergdahl’s newfound freedom as good news. Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-CA) has labeled Bergdahl a deserter, but the lawmaker still welcomed the release of America’s only prisoner of war in Afghanistan.
But some on Fox News have spent much of the week maligning Bergdahl and his father, Bob. Bill O’Reilly said Monday that the elder Bergdahl’s untamed beard, which was grown out as a show of solidarity during his son’s five years of captivity, made him look like a Muslim. On Thursday night, Megyn Kelly hosted six of Bergdahl’s platoon mates who asserted that the soldier is no hero.
And on Friday’s episode of “Outnumbered,” Guilfoyle said that things may not have ended so well for Bergdahl had he been discovered by U.S. soldiers instead of being brought back as part of an exchange.
“He’s pretty lucky that he was brought home the way he was because if those special forces had found him and encountered him and they were looking for him, he would have come home either in a body bag or come home and gone straight to jail,” Guilfoyle said.
Instead, Guilfoyle complained, Bergdahl’s family was brought to the White House to appear alongside President Obama, and National Security Adviser Susan Rice paid tribute during a television interview to the soldier’s service.
When Guilfoyle said the accusations against Bergdahl are “quite alarming,” Rivera argued once again that the soldier’s history is irrelevant and he deserved to be brought home regardless.
