Jesse Watters on Wednesday endorsed the idea of “chivalrous men” taking to the streets to help prevent crime, while making sure to clarify that he does not mean “vigilantes.” Reacting to video of an armed robbery by two suspects in Oakland, California, last week in which the female victim was pistol-whipped and dragged along the ground by her hair, Watters said it “elicits so much rage and emotion in the hearts of the American people that you almost want to go and just choke those two men and just throw them into the river yourself, because someone has to protect these women.” The co-host of The Five said that if he were a GOP presidential candidate on stage at Wednesday’s debate in Milwaukee, he would make the video—and crime as a whole—a primary concern. “Someone has to protect our people,” Watters continued. “And if the police aren’t going to do it and politicians are going to do it, someone else has to do it. And we’re about this close to having—I’m not going to call them vigilantes—but chivalrous men out there defending the streets because there’s a vacuum out there right now.”
