The Five co-host Jesse Watters on Monday went after former President Barack Obama for criticizing the disparity in media attention on the five-person submersible that imploded during its venture to the Titanic wreck last week when compared to the sinking of a Mediterranean fishing boat that was carrying up to 750 refugees and migrants, only 104 of whom have been rescued as of Friday.
Speaking at a conference in Athens, Greece, last Thursday, Obama acknowledged the inherent drama of the submersible.
“There is a potential tragedy unfolding with the submarine that is getting, you know, minute-to-minute coverage all around the world. And it’s understandable because we all want and pray that those folks are rescued,” he said, hours before it was announced that those on board died instantly after the craft imploded. “But the fact that that’s gotten so much more attention than 700 people who sank—that’s an untenable situation.”
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The former president made similar comments in an interview Thursday with CNN’s Christiane Amanpour, saying he understood the “obscene inequality in coverage.”
On Monday, the subject became fodder for discussion on Fox News.
“When you are a citizen of the world, you always think about the world instead of the United States,” Watters began derisively. “Remember, this is a guy whose father has roots in Africa. This is a guy who spent a lot of his childhood in Southeast Asia… and then spent a lot of time in Hawaii.”
“He’s never really looking at things from an American perspective,” Watters griped of the 44th president of the United States. “He’s always speaking to the world. Even when he’s speaking to us, he’s appealing to the world.”
Watters—who Fox announced Monday will soon helm its primetime spot formerly held by Tucker Carlson—then listed several reasons why the submersible dominated coverage ”from a raw news editorial standpoint.”
For one, the capsized fishing boat off the coast of Greece had “no Titanic angle,” Watters said. Also, news networks “had guests that knew people that were submerged,” he continued, adding that there was an element of suspense due to the dwindling estimated amount of oxygen remaining in the submersible before its fate was known.
Watters’ fourth reason concerned the location of the Titanic wreck, which is about 900 miles off the coast of Massachusetts in the North Atlantic.
“If there had been a Cuban boat that had capsized and there were Cubans who were drowning off the coast of Miami, that would have been wall-to-wall coverage,” Watters claimed.
“We don’t live in Europe, Barack Obama. This is the United States of America, and it shows how naive, detached, and how snobby he is to not understand that this is the United States,” he complained. “And as sad as it is—and it was a horrible story off the coast—this is not something that concerns most Americans in their spare time.”
