Juan Williams and Jesse Watters got into a back and forth about the Jacob Blake shooting during a Wednesday segment of Fox News’ “The Five.”
While discussing the news that the Milwaukee Bucks were boycotting their Wednesday playoff game against the Orlando Magic, Williams said he was “proud of” the players. (RELATED:‘You Can’t Be Serious!’: Greg Gutfeld Loses It When Juan Williams Compares ‘Anarchist Violence’ To ‘QAnon Violence’)
“There’s no question about, you know, violence being the wrong thing,” Williams said. “I mean, I don’t think anybody wants to embrace violence. But when you have a situation where the president simply sends troops where he is sort of politicized it where there’s a lack of leadership on police reform, a lack of racial healing in the country, I think that you can say this is what we have under the incumbent.”
After responding to Williams by saying “the whole lie that federal troops cause chaos is wrong,” Watters spoke about Blake.”It’s tragic. No one wants to see this happen in the United States of America. And it id completely avoidable.”
Watters then walked through the Blake shooting.
“What we know is this. They have a 911 call that comes in. They say that Blake is at this place, he’s not supposed to be there. He’s now stolen the keys of the woman and he’s not giving them back,” Waters said. “The police are alerted to the fact that there’s an act of felony warrant against Blake for a sexual assault and they know from his criminal history that he has felony weapons issues as well. So when they arrive at the scene, a fight breaks out. There’s a scuffle. He resists arrests. They’re wrestling on the floor or something like that.”
“What is this? Day three of the riots? There’s a power vacuum because the state is not sending in people to calm things down. Sadly you’re going to have vigilante justice. You’ll have business owners send in people or go in themselves to protect their small business that they’ve worked their lives to make work. Things happen and it’s horrible,” Watters continued. “That’s not the way to handle it, but unfortunately this is what happens when a governor abdicates his responsibility to keep the safe streets.”
Williams shot back at Watters, saying, “I hope you’re not trying to excuse that young man being shot like that.”
Watters insisted, “I’m not at all … I’m reporting what facts of the case are.”
Williams pushed back against Watter’s claim that we still don’t know whether or not Blake had a gun on his person or in his vehicle. “I just want to point out to you that in fact what we know at this juncture is there was no gun. The guns were drawn on that young man as he was walking. Before he even got near the car door … The violence, the deaths, the murders that we saw last night — now there was a young man arrested from out of town whose social media and the likes that thinks himself of a militia member. He was there as a provocative act —”
Watters interrupted Williams, saying he condemns the supposed vigilantism. “That’s the reality of the situation.”