Pointing out the blatant hypocrisy of Fox News star Jesse Watters asking for sympathy for those who’ve been impacted by DOGE cuts, CNN anchor Abby Phillip aired a mashup of Watters cheering on the mass federal layoffs that Elon Musk’s government efficiency agency has pushed through.
“DOGE for thee, but not for me?” Phillip snarked at one point.
With the world’s richest man tasked by President Donald Trump to take a chainsaw to federal agencies and slash hundreds of thousands of federal jobs, Watters exhibited a bit of buyer’s remorse on Wednesday when he revealed that the drastic terminations had impacted a friend of his who worked at the Pentagon.
“I finally found one person I knew who got DOGE’d and hit me in the heart,” Watters said to his Fox News colleagues, urging them to “be a little bit less callous” when talking “about DOGE-ing people” since it now affected him personally.
“This guy’s not a [diversity, equity and inclusion] consultant, he’s not a climate consultant. This guy is a veteran. So when you’re talking about DOGE-ing people, veterans should get priority,” he declared. “Because if you’re going to go out there and kill enemies, put your life on the line, you should not be in the same category as people that are doing DEI.”
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Watters’ on-air plea came a day after DOGE officials arrived at the Pentagon to receive lists of probationary employees who would be fired. This followed the Office of Personnel Management telling federal agencies to start firing staffers who were still in the probationary period, a move that could result in as many as 200,000 layoffs.
During Thursday night’s CNN Newsnight broadcast, Phillip took aim at Watters for being one of the biggest backers of DOGE — especially when it came to the administration completely eliminating DEI workers — until his pal suddenly found himself in the firing line.
“Tonight alone, thousands of IRS employees have been fired, and sources are describing emotional scenes playing out in workplaces across the country,” she said. “Employees are crying, managers are crying, and many are angry. Kicking chairs and throwing books over how they are being treated.”
Phillip added: “All of this during the busiest time of the year for the agency. Now, at the Defense Department, we‘re hearing that 50,000 people are at risk of being fired next. 50,000! But listen to one champion of doge who suddenly changes his tune when the cuts hit home.”
After airing a clip of Watters begging DOGE to reconsider, Phillip then teed up a supercut of the Fox News host gushing over the spending cuts and firings that Musk’s team has pushed forward.
“Well, that same guy lecturing on being less callous has been the king of callousness for weeks,” she noted.
CNN’s montage, meanwhile, included clips of Watters absolutely fawning over Trump’s “first buddy” and his crew. “DOGE is dishing out spankings like daddy daycare,” he cheered during one broadcast while exclaiming in another: “DOGE is a blessing from the heavens above.”
“DOGE for thee, but not for me?” Phillip quipped before turning to panelist Julie Roginsky, a former Fox News commentator.
“The leopard eats Jesse Watters’ face,” Roginsky joked before issuing a warning to Watters.
“He‘s kind of in a precarious time slot there over at Fox. So his previous two predecessors got fired, so I wouldn‘t be celebrating people getting fired if I were him. Because it‘s probably going to come for him next,” she stated, referencing the unceremonious departures of former Fox News primetime hosts Bill O’Reilly and Tucker Carlson.
“They don‘t discriminate between people who are MAGA and people who are not MAGA,” Roginsky concluded. “And ultimately, the leopard is going to eat their face. And Jesse Watters found that out.”
