Fox News host Jesse Watters wanted viewers of The Five on Tuesday to know that when he said on the show the day prior that generals in the Situation Room would “have their way with” Kamala Harris if she were to be elected president, he didn’t mean anything sexual, despite the suggestive phrasing.
“There’s been some attention to comments I made on the show yesterday about VP Harris,” Watters said to close out the opening block of Tuesday’s broadcast. “People are misconstruing my comments to mean something inappropriate. I wasn’t suggesting anything of a sexual nature. I was expressing my opinion that VP Harris’s current leadership style could be an issue if elected.”
After Watters made the initial comment on Monday, he was promptly called out by colleagues Jeanine Pirro and Dana Perino. Watters claimed then that he was only speaking “figuratively,” and “not in a sexual way.”
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Still, several notable criticisms of Watters followed. Barbara Comstock, a Republican former congresswoman for Virginia who supports Harris’ candidacy, said Watters’ “misogyny” against the vice president was “intentional.” Kerstin Emhoff, the ex-wife of second gentleman Doug Emhoff, also wrote on X, “There are many things to worry about, but Kamala being manhandled in the situation room is not one of them.”
Watters, who landed the 8 p.m. primetime slot last July after Tucker Carlson’s ouster, has made controversial comments about women for years. Not only did he suggest on air in early 2022 that Harris was having a “typical female problem” as vice president, but in 2019 claimed that female journalists sleep with sources “all the time.”
Two years before that, Watters announced he would be taking a “vacation” from co-hosting The Five the day after he made suggestive remarks and gestures about Ivanka Trump holding a microphone.
Then, as now, Watters insisted there was nothing sexual about it.
