Fox host Jesse Watters, who stepped into the big slot when Fox decided to bring its fraught but lucrative Tucker Carlson era to a close in 2023, doesn’t shy away from getting personal with guests on his show.
[NOTE: Watters began his on-camera career doing the proverbial man-on-the-street type interviews on Bill O’Reilly‘s Fox program and his style retains an improvisational aspect, which has worked both for and against him.]
Interviewing Stephen Miller this week, Watters told the controversial Trump administration senior policy advisor and speech writer that women in his audience found him attractive. (Watters indicated that the show had received multiple texts to this effect.)
In fact, the reality of Miller’s attractiveness so overwhelmed his audience, by Watters’s account, that not addressing it would be akin to ignoring “the elephant in the room.”
“Our audience at Primetime,” Watters tells Miller, “believes you’re some sort of sexual matador. What do you have to say for yourself?”
Watters: We are getting a lot of texts from women about Stephen Miller. Our audience believes you are some sort of sexual matador.
Miller: Some advice to any young man out there. If you are a young man who’s looking to impress the ladies, to be attractive.. the best thing you… pic.twitter.com/PMwMO3Voz1
— Acyn (@Acyn) October 9, 2024
Miller then proceeds to give advice to young men watching who are presumed to wish to emulate his success in sexual matador-ship, telling them that if they wish to “be attractive to women…to be the alpha” they should “wear your Trump support on your sleeve. Show that you are a real man. Show that you are not a beta.”
Miller promises the youthful men watching Watters’s program that, should they follow his advice, “your dating life will be fantastic.”
Mocking the exchange, MSNBC personality Katie Phang wrote in the comments “They’re doing SNL skits now over at that other place!” — the other place being Fox.
They’re doing SNL skits now over at that other place!
— Katie Phang (@KatiePhang) October 9, 2024
Watters has run into controversy using language presumed to have a sexual connotation in the past, saying in August of Kamala Harris that “she’s going to get paralyzed in the Situation Room while the generals have their way with her.”
Watters did not specifically call any of the general “sexual matadors” in that instance, and later said that people were “misconstruing” his “comments to mean something inappropriate.” Watters denied that intent, saying: “I wasn’t suggesting anything of a sexual nature.”