Geraldo Rivera shocked conservatives during the 2024 campaign when he abandoned Donald Trump to endorse Democrat Kamala Harris. That gamble didn’t pay off — and now, the veteran journalist is suddenly walking it back in dramatic fashion.

Once one of President Trump’s loudest media critics, Rivera has abruptly shifted gears. Appearing on NewsNation this week, he delivered an effusive endorsement of the president’s leadership on the world stage.

“I again am so proud of President Trump for making this effort,” Rivera said, praising Trump’s ongoing push to pressure Moscow into serious peace talks to end the war in Ukraine. “I really believe that he’s trying and that the world will see that Russia, in some ways, is a paper tiger.”

The reversal stunned longtime observers. Not so long ago, Rivera dismissed Trump as a “sore loser who cannot be trusted to honor the Constitution” after January 6. But this time, Rivera doubled down, citing demographics and geopolitics as proof of Trump’s leverage.

“One hundred and thirty million Russians, 450 million Europeans, 330 million Americans, I think the math is on our side,” Rivera argued. “Russia is not what Russia was when it was the Soviet Union, and we have to stop thinking of Putin as being this boogie man, larger than life, that can keep us up at night.”

The timing of Rivera’s comments could not have been more pointed. Just hours earlier, a fresh InsiderAdvantage poll showed President Trump surging to a 54% approval rating following his high-stakes summit in Alaska with Vladimir Putin.

According to pollster Matt Towery, “Donald Trump now has an advantage among every age group other than the most senior of voters.” Towery further noted that Trump “has improved his numbers among African-Americans and Hispanic-Latinos. White voters are at a near record 64 percent.”

The numbers tell the story: Trump’s presidency is gaining momentum across the board. And Rivera, once a skeptic, appears to be repositioning himself accordingly. Critics accuse him of opportunism, suggesting his pivot has more to do with reading the political winds than genuine conviction.

That suspicion isn’t without merit. Rivera and Trump go back decades, to 1970s New York. Rivera has admitted, “He was the first rich guy I ever knew,” and during Trump’s first term he enjoyed close access, saying the president was “very generous, very gracious, inviting me to the White House, giving me access interviews.”

But the relationship soured after the 2020 election. Rivera broke ranks, accused Trump of “strong-arming” the Constitution, and in 2022 declared his support for Kamala Harris, boasting, “I am voting for Kamala Harris to be our 47th President.”

Now, with Harris politically finished and Trump once again steering global affairs from the Oval Office, Rivera’s about-face is impossible to ignore. Whether it’s conviction or calculation, his public praise underscores one undeniable fact: Trump’s dominance in American politics is stronger than ever.