Fox News host Jesse Watters has—once again—blown a racial dog whistle, this time targeting jurors deliberating on former President Donald Trump’s criminal trial in New York.
During Jesse Watters Primetime Wednesday evening and on the second day of deliberations about Trump’s case involving alleged hush money payments during his 2016 presidential campaign, Watters lambasted jurors’ alleged professional associations with diversity, equity, and inclusion.
“The jury has two lawyers on it who work at Manhattan corporate law firms with DEI all over their websites,” he said. “What do you think will happen if they find Trump not guilty and show up to work next week?”
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Watters seemingly disqualified the attorneys because of their firms’ alleged commitments to promoting cultural acceptance. Interestingly, he also appeared to associate Trump and Republicans with cultural intolerance because “these types of [pro-DEI] firms all work for and donate to Democrats.”
Watters also claimed the attorneys’ “reputations and careers are in jeopardy” if they don’t convict Trump of any wrongdoing.
“The judge sent 12 Manhattan jurors to deliberate on the fate of the former president with a new crime and no guidance,” Watters said into the camera. “This case was designed to be confusing. … They played right into the jurors’ biases and stereotypes.”
According to Newsweek, there’s a general consensus among Black Americans that “DEI” has come to be an alternative term for racial slurs.
Ironically, a little later in Wednesday’s episode, Watters doubled down on his own biases and perceived stereotypes when he said that President Joe Biden “is in deep trouble with Black Americans.”
Watters, a white man, said that Black people are more concerned about “inflation, immigration, and crime” than Biden’s DEI push and then said that Biden has to appeal to Black people by using Philly Elmo, a person in an Elmo costume who dances at functions. Watters has dubbed the character “Black Elmo.”
Later during Wednesday night’s Jesse Watters Primetime, the host further played into grouping Black people into a monolith by inviting a Blexit activist Madeline Brame—who claimed most Black people have to go to food pantries—on to the show to ask “what [sinks] in with Black voters.”
This is not the first time Watters has showcased his white-savior complex to whitesplain what Black people need or issue coded advisories against them. Earlier this year, he griped about electric charging stations being placed near “the projects… in New York.” In August, he said Trump should have appealed to Black voters because of the release of his Atlanta mugshot.
During a 2019 episode of Fox & Friends, the Fox News commentator said he’d “grab [his] wallet” if he ever met Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), Ilhan Omar (D-MN) and Ayanna Pressley (D-MA). Considering all of the women are of color, the comment was highly insensitive and played into racial stereotypes about criminal behavior.
Watters said Wednesday that the left has a strategy to always “blame racism.”
Fox News did not immediately return The Daily Beast’s request for comment Thursday.
Justin Baragona contributed to the reporting on this piece.
