On Tuesday, Jesse Watters made what has been interpreted as an apparent oral sex joke about Fist Daughter Ivanka Trump while he was co-hosting Fox News’ The Five. On the heels of the incident, the Fox personality has announced that he is going on vacation.
According to CNN’s Brian Stelter, Watters will be off on vacation until Monday, missing two episodes of The Five and his Saturday night show, Watters’ World.
After former Fox News host Bill O’Reilly was outed at the network, The Five earned a new time slot and moved co-host Eric Bolling to his own show. Watters was selected to take Bolling’s old spot.
On his second day on the job, Watters made a remark about liking how Ivanka was “speaking into that microphone,” which many construed as a sexually suggestive comment. There is no doubt the slew of sexual harassment allegations surrounding former Fox bigwigs Roger Ailes and O’Reilly added fuel to such speculation.
“Yeah, it’s funny, the Left says they’ll really respect women and then when given an opportunity to respect a woman like that they boo and hiss,” said Watters, after a clip of Ivanka speaking in Germany was aired. “So I don’t really get what’s going on here.”
Then he added the remark now under fire: “But, uh, I really like the way she was speaking into that microphone.”
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Watters has completely denied that his remark was meant to be sexually suggestive in any way.
Many in the media are speculating Watters is taking a “vacation” just as O’Reilly had, i.e., never to return to the network. This seems highly unlikely, as many have interpreted the intent of the comment as harmless and nonsexual.