For Millennials. By Millennials.
Fox News is known for spreading anti-vaccine and right-wing narratives. However, this time it seems the news network has gone too far. Fox News host Jesse Watters recently told his audience to “rhetorically” ambush Dr. Anthony Fauci with a “kill-shot”. These words did not evade President Joe Biden’s chief medical advisor, as he called for Watters to be fired for using such violent language. Now, Fox News has also given its judgment on the matter.
During an address at a conference of the conservative group Turning Point USA last weekend, The Five host Jesse Watters’s rhetoric seemed to hint at violence towards Dr. Anthony Fauci. He told the crowd:
You got to ambush a guy like Fauci. OK, this is how you do these ambushes like [Project Veritas founder James] O’Keefe. You got to be respectful because they’ll turn the tables on you and you can’t have it blow up in your face. This guy’s scrambling at this point.
Later on, Watters indicated making a “kill shot” towards Dr. Fauci. Followed by that, he accused Fauci of funding research at the Wuhan Virology lab, which has been at the center of the “lab-leak” hypothesis. He continued:
Now you go in for the kill shot. The kill shot? With an ambush? Deadly. Because he doesn’t see it coming. This is when you say, ‘Dr Fauci, you funded risky research at a sloppy Chinese lab’… Boom, he is dead! He is dead! He’s done!
Dr. Fauci responded to Watters’s comments, saying he should be fired
After hearing Jesse Watters’s words, Dr. Anthony Fauci did not hold back in expressing his distaste for his words. He called for the dismissal of the host while talking to CNN, saying:
I mean, that’s crazy. The guy should be fired on the spot. It’s horrible. I mean that’s just a reflection of the craziness that goes on in society.
Fauci then further added that he only ever encouraged good public health practices. And for doing such public service, he is receiving such vague death threats, adding:
The only thing that I have ever done throughout these two years is to encourage people to practice good public health practices: to get vaccinated, to be careful in public settings, to wear a mask… And for that, you have some guy out there saying that people should be giving me a kill shot to ambush me? I mean, what kind of craziness is there in society these days?
In their response to the White House’s Chief Medical Advisor, Fox News backs Jesse Watters
Despite these controversial remarks which many consider as an incitement to violence, Fox News stood by Jesse Walters. In their response to the outrage shown by Dr. Fauci and other critics, they released a statement, saying:
Based on watching the full clip and reading the entire transcript, it’s more than clear that Jesse Watters was using a metaphor for asking hard-hitting questions to Dr. Fauci about gain-of-function research and his words have been twisted completely out of context.
This, however, is not the first time that Fox News hosts have engaged in a direct attack on Dr. Anthony Fauci. Just a few weeks ago, Fox News host Lara Logan compared Fauci with an infamous Nazi doctor famous for performing experiments on prisoners in Auschwitz. In response to that, Fauci commented at the time telling MSNBC host Chris Hayes:
What I find striking, Chris, is how she gets no discipline whatsoever from the Fox network. How they can let her say that with no comment and no disciplinary action. I’m astounded by that.
