Fox News host Geraldo Rivera on Friday said that “angry, old, white men” like Sens. John McCain (R-AZ) and Lindsey Graham (R-SC) demanded Susan Rice give up any ambition to be secretary of state as a “minimum price” for the September attacks in Benghazi.

Speaking to the hosts of Fox & Friends, Rivera explained that female Republican Sens. Kelly Ayotte (R-NH) and Susan Collins (R-ME) gave cover to “the angry, old, white men” by joining in their attack on Rice “and then it couldn’t be a male-female issue against this poor, beleaguered black woman.”

ADVERTISEMENT

“Angry, old, white men?” asked co-host Gretchen Carlson.

“I am speaking expansively and metaphorically and for effect here,” Rivera insisted. “But it became clear she couldn’t be the beleaguered damsel in distress — the poor, black, embattled ambassador. It became clear that she was the minimum price… she was the minimum price to pay for the administrations dissembling on the facts and circumstances of the Benghazi attacks. She was going to be the minimum price that the Democrats, that the Obama administration had to pay for that clear offense.”

“In Washington, you make minimum prices. She’s the sacrificial lamb.”

NBC News White House correspondent Chuck Todd, however, on Thursday said that Rice had also been a victim of conservative media outlets like Fox News.

“She became victim of the attacks. … and it was all driven, in many cases, by conservative outlets who were making her the center of the Benghazi story,” Todd told MSNBC’s Martin Bashir. “It’s too easy now in the way our media landscape is set up: You can become collateral damage in a hurry, in the way you can just get piled on — whether it’s Twitter, whether its advocacy journalism, talk radio. … That’s what she was. Make no mistake, she was political collateral damage.”

ADVERTISEMENT

Watch this video from Fox News’ Fox & Friends, broadcast Dec. 14, 2012.

(h/t: Mediaite)