WATCH: Geraldo Rivera Humiliated After Melting Down, Cursing During Live Debate

Crossing the U.S. border illegally is a crime, but you wouldn’t know it by listening to Geraldo Rivera.

The former Fox News anchor sat in stunned silence after being corrected by Benny Johnson while arguing that most illegal aliens are not actually lawbreakers. A brief back and forth appeared to break Rivera’s brain when he finally gave up and either refused to respond or quietly ignored a final provocation.

“The only crime the vast majority of these people have committed is coming here illegally,” Rivera asserted, drawing a befuddled look from his debate opponent.

“Do you understand the definition of the world illegal?” Johnson challenged him on Piers Morgan’s “Uncensored” program.

“I understand everything,” Rivera tersely shot back. But it was what happened next that let Johnson make light of the entire moment.

“You just said they came here illegally,” he probed before 10 full seconds of silence followed.

Rather than responding, Rivera looked contemplatively off-camera.

Fans of Johnson got a hit out of his viral clip of the exchange, which has racked up over 7,000 reposts on X as of Friday morning. He layered on the theme song from “Jeopardy!,” a fitting touch.

But it only took a few seconds for a sanctimonious Rivera to respond with outrage that Johnson would characterize all illegals as criminals.

“I am absolutely dismayed by the attempts to sow terror in the homes of latino people,” he yelled.

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Things got no better as Morgan let his two guests go at each other’s throats.

“My contention — wiseass!” Rivera yelled amid crosstalk before throwing up his hand as Johnson refused to back down.

“What do you mean by they’re not criminal aliens?” Johnson said. Asked by Rivera if he carries his passport around with him as many latino families must now do, Johnson quickly replied, “I always carry an ID with me… and a gun.”

Rivera, 82, was once on the side of conservative opinion journalism before finding himself ostracized for several head-scratching statements that cut against the grain.

He grew increasingly liberal with age, and in 2023 announced he would be stepping away from Fox News’ “The Five” for good, citing “editorial differences” with the show’s producers.

Fox management “didn’t race after me to say, ‘Geraldo, please come back,'” he told the AP.

Now in semi-retirement, Rivera occasionally returns to serve as a punching bag for his lenient views on illegal immigration.

In March, he claimed that “many of the folks most concerned with illegal immigrant aliens have never actually seen one.” An outpouring of online critics lambasted Rivera for opining from his comfy perch in Shaker Heights, Ohio, one of the state’s wealthiest and most liberal enclaves.