Fox News star Jesse Watters applauded Donald Trump’s insistence that the United States has the authority to “take” Gaza and forcibly displace 2 million Palestinians from their land, claiming “uneducated” Palestine represents a demographic “threat” because “their birthrate is explosive.”
These latest remarks from the Trump-boosting host, who has repeatedly come under fire for commentary that’s been described as bigoted, racist and misogynistic, prompted accusations from progressives and liberals that Watters was peddling “Nazi-level sh*t” and “white supremacy.”
Speaking to reporters on Tuesday while meeting with King Abdullah II of Jordan, Trump doubled down on his previous declaration that the U.S. would take ownership of Gaza and redevelop the strip as a vacation resort while forcing out the Palestinian population. He added that the Palestinians wouldn’t be allowed to stay or return, claiming they would instead be resettled in “beautiful homes” in an unknown location.
“We're going to have Gaza. We don't have to buy. There's nothing to buy. We will have Gaza,” Trump said. “We're going to take it, we're going to hold it, we're going to cherish it. We're going to get it going eventually, where a lot of jobs are going to be created for the people in the Middle East. It's going to be for the people in the Middle East.”
With the president also reiterating that “all bets are off” and “all hell is going to break out” if Hamas doesn’t release all of its remaining Israeli hostages by Saturday, Watters praised Trump for attempting to reach a “grand bargain” in the Middle East.
“You do the displacement and the rebuild, but you also work in — you want to redo the diplomacy between Saudis and the Israelis and you also have to deal with the Iranian nuclear weapons. So, it's all one big negotiation,” he stated on Tuesday’s broadcast of The Five. “The two-state solution, living side-by-side, it's an unrealistic expectation. So, this Gaza-stan is the only alternative. I'm not saying it's the answer, but right now, it is the only alternative that's realistic.”
From there, the MAGA pundit explained why he thought the Palestinian population needed to be pushed off of their land, a proposal that experts have said is “ethnic cleansing” and would never work because it is “so ridiculous.”
“This population in Palestine is hostile, it's uneducated,” Watters proclaimed. “It's even more radicalized than they were at the beginning of this. I mean, now, they have no homes at all. They're even more hateful of the Israelis. And their birthrate is explosive.”
He added: “The average Palestinian woman has five and a half babies. The average Israeli woman has only two and a half babies. So, demographically, they're a threat. Not to mention the national security threat. There is no way you can have these two people living side-by-side.”
It didn’t take long for Watters’ inflammatory remarks to spark outrage.
“There is no one, no one, on American television who speaks in a more racist and genocidal way about Palestinians than Jesse Watters,” Zeteo founder and editor-in-chief Mehdi Hasan reacted. “This is Nazi-level sh*t right here.”
Sharing a clip of Watters’ comments on X (formerly Twitter), video journalist Riley Hallaway wrote that “at almost any other news/media outlet saying something as vile and racist as this would rightly get you fired.”
“Calling babies a 'threat' is unhinged,” author and activist Qasim Rashid tweeted. “Calling babies a threat because they are brown is also de facto Nazism and white supremacy. Watters is absolutely announcing he aligns with Nazi and white supremacist 'replacement theory' trash & Fox & Murdoch celebrate it. Disgusting.”
While others equated Watters’ remarks to Nazisim, some insisted that the Fox star’s commentary was essentially in line with the Zionist movement. “This is Zionism, btw,” The Majority Report co-host Emma Vigeland posted. “The only population in the world that you can talk about with such hate is the Palestinian people thanks to Zionists who to create a Jewish state had to deal with a whole population living in their historical homeland as a ‘demographical threat,’” political analyst Khalil Sayegh added.
This isn’t the first time that Watters has been denounced for his comments about Muslim and Arab populations. Weeks after the October 7 Hamas attacks, the Fox News host took issue with pro-Palestinian protesters tearing down posters of Israeli hostages, saying any “Arab American in this country” caught removing them “is going to get punched in the face.”
Adding that he’d like to “say something about Arab Americans and about the Muslim world,” Watters went on to claim that the American public has “had it with them,” prompting the Biden White House to demand an apology from Fox News over his remarks. “President Biden will always stand up against Islamophobia, antisemitism and all forms of hate. Fox News should learn from his example,” spokesperson Andrew Bates said at the time.
