HuffPost‘s Amanda Terkel has absolutely no remorse about sticking it to Fox News’s Jesse Watters.
Watters’ mug is in the news after he made a crude remark on Tuesday on “The Five” during the program’s new prime time hour at 9 p.m. about first daughter Ivanka Trump.
He’s now suddenly on vacation until Monday.
“So I don’t really get what’s going on here, but I really liked how she was speaking into that microphone,” Watters cracked with a smirk on Monday’s program after the program aired footage of Ivanka.
He announced his time off on Wednesday night on “The Five” at 9 p.m. His down time comes three days into his new job as a co-host of the program. According to a FNC insider, this isn’t a good sign.
Terkel is fresh with outrage, as are others who are watching Fox News like a hawk.
But hers is more personal.
In 2009, Watters and a cameraman ambushed HuffPost‘s political managing editor by confronting her outside her hotel in Virginia while she was on vacation. She said she hadn’t told anyone where she was going and guessed that Watters had staked her out at her apartment. The reason? She was critical of O’Reilly blaming a woman for her rape because of what she’d been wearing.
Terkel had raised the issue of O’Reilly because he’d be asked to keynote an Alexa Foundation event. The Alexa Foundation donates money to victims of sexual assault. Watters was outside Terkel’s hotel to get material for O’Reilly to put on air. She wrote it all up here and called him O’Reilly’s “top hit man.”
Watters’ remark about Ivanka was obviously sexual. But Watters went on to say that he was referring to Ivanka’s voice being like a “smooth jazz radio DJ.”
In other words, viewers didn’t see what they saw.
“This was in no way a joke about anything else,” he lied on Twitter.
The bottom line: Watters’ timing could not have been worse. With the network under fire for its culture, the remark came on the heels of Fox News host Bill O’Reilly being forced out and Fox News ex-President Roger Ailes being a distant memory after Gretchen Carlson successfully sued him for $20 million.
To say that Terkel is glad that Watters’ head is hopefully on the chopping block is an understatement.
“Watters’ joke about Trump was crass and inappropriate, but it’s standard fare for a man who has said and done worse toward people who are far less powerful,” she wrote in a Thursday post. “In those instances, he never faced any public repercussions from his network.
No longer does Watters have O’Reilly to bat away swarms of critics. He’s busy hosting a new podcast.
Terkel really hopes that Watters has a lovely vacation.
“I hope that Watters is able to enjoy his vacation this week in peace, without anyone following him and ambushing him and his family,” she wrote.
And with that, HuffPost‘s survey: Should Fox News fire Jesse Watters?
