Fox News announced on Monday that Jesse Watters will be the permanent host of their 7 p.m. hour. Watters, who got his on-air start on Fox’s The O-Reilly Factor doing ambush-style interviews, will take over the hour vacated by anchor Martha MacCallum who was moved to 3 p.m. almost a year ago. A rotating cast of hosts has filled the 7 p.m. hour with punditry since MacCallum’s show moved to earlier in the day.
Watters is best-known for his acerbic wit and fiery takes on one of Fox’s top-rated shows: The Five. While his playful and often brutal humor has helped to pull in one of the biggest audiences on cable, it has also landed Watters in his fair share of controversy over the years.
Here are five of his most controversial moments:
Watters Gets Into a Scuffle With a Huffington Post Reporter
In May of 2016, at a White House Correspondents Dinner afterparty, Watters and Huffington Post reporter Ryan Grim got into what the Washington Post dubbed a “nerdy fight.”
Grim later explained what happened on Twitter, writing, “Ambush guy snatched my phone, didn’t like being filmed, he tried to keep it. That didn’t happen.” Grim had approached Watters while filming on his phone, asking Watters to apologize to his colleague Amanda Terkel.
Watters followed Terkel around while she was on vacation trying to get her on camera in 2009 to talk about a post she wrote about past controversial remarks of O’Reilly’s on the subject of rape victims. After Watters confronted her, Terkel wrote a piece titled, “I Was Followed, Harassed, And Ambushed By Bill O’Reilly’s Producer.”
Watters Defends 2020 Election Fraud Allegations, Battles Geraldo
Watters has regularly raised and defended the widely debunked accusations that there was rampant election fraud in the 2020 election that benefited the Democrats. In November of 2020, Geraldo Rivera had no patience for Watters’ description of voter fraud while on The Five. “An international conspiracy? Why not Elvis?” Rivera replied, mocking the allegations.
“I love the president and wanted him to win this election,” Rivera added.
“They have 3 standing lawsuits in 3 different states,” Watters said, cutting in. All of the lawsuits Watters mentioned have since been dismissed and no evidence of voter fraud has been found after multiple audits.
“They
Watters Offends in Chinatown
In October 2016, Watters took his man-on-the-street segment to Manhattan’s Chinatown to film one of his most derided clips. In the segment, Watters leans heavily into stereotypes about Chinese culture. He mixed in standard political questions with other queries like “Is it the year of the dragon…rabbit?” and “Do they call Chinese food in China just food?”
The segment was so unpopular that Watters apologized, kind of, on Twitter, writing, “My man-on-the-street interviews are meant to be taken as tongue-in-cheek and I regret if anyone found offense. As a political humorist, the Chinatown segment was intended to be a light piece, as all Watters World segments are.”
Ivanka-Microphone Quip
In April of 2017, Watters landed himself in hot water again with an off-the-cuff quip about First Daughter Ivanka Trump. “I really liked how she was speaking into that microphone,” Watters said on The Five after Fox News ran footage of the first daughter speaking on a panel in Germany.
Watters was roundly denounced for what most interrupted as a lewd joke regarding oral sex. He however denied his joke was sexual in nature, telling Mediaite at the time, “During the break, we were commenting on Ivanka’s voice and how it was low and steady and resonates like a smooth jazz radio DJ. This
‘Kill Shot’ Remark Regarding Anthony Fauci
While speaking at Turning Point USA’s December 2021 AmericaFest, Watters stirred controversy while saying if you are going to try and discredit or attack Anthony Fauci you need to go for the “kill shot.”
“Now you’re going for the kill shot. The kill shot with an ambush is deadly because he doesn’t see it coming,” Watters said to the conservative audience.
Watters added: “Boom, he is dead! He is dead!”
After calls for Watters to be fired, Fox News released a statement standing behind him, saying it was “more than clear” that Watters was speaking metaphorically when he used the words “kill shot,” and did not actually encourage violence against the infectious disease expert.