Philly’s Jesse Watters is now Fox News’ biggest star, even while facing a lawsuit
Watters is quietly nearing 25 years at Fox News, where he has gone from being a lowly production assistant to the network's most-watched personality.
Jesse Watters is the face of Fox News, for better or worse.
Watters, a Philly native who grew up in Germantown and East Falls, began as a production assistant at the network in 2001 and is now one of its most-watched stars, drawing more viewers on any given night than conservative stalwarts Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham.
One of President Donald Trump’s loudest cheerleaders, Watters, 47, is a youthful bomb-thrower, faithfully playing the hits on a network where all the opinion hosts bend over backward to paint the administration in a positive light.
Brian Stelter, CNN’s chief media analyst, has referred to Watters as the network’s “prime-time extremist." But Watters also has a playfulness and a willingness to poke fun at himself — often through disapproving texts from his liberal Philly mom — that some of the more self-serious hosts at Fox News lack.
“He has the snark of Bill O’Reilly, the conspiratorial thinking of Lou Dobbs, and the masculinity fixation of Tucker Carlson,” said Dannagal Young, a University of Delaware professor who has studied the impact of humor and rage in political media. “Think of him as 2025’s Rush Limbaugh, just one that’s succeeding in the televisual space because of his boyish good looks.”
Watters currently stars on two of the network’s most-watched shows — Jesse Watters Primetime and The Five, which he cohosts alongside Greg Gutfeld, Dana Perino, and rotating Democrats Jessica Tarlov and Harold Ford Jr.
The Five, basically the network’s answer to The View, is Fox News’ most-watched show, averaging 3.8 million viewers last quarter. It was also the most-watched program on all of cable television, though that is becoming a less impressive feat each month due to the long-term trend of cord cutting. (Since May, more people in the U.S. have streamed television using services like YouTube and Netflix than watched broadcast and cable combined, according to Nielsen.)
Jesse Watters Primetime also scored big with viewers, averaging 3.4 million a night during the second quarter of 2025, making it the network’s second-most-watched show. Over at MSNBC, Rachel Maddow averaged about 2 million viewers a night, but her show airs only one night a week. CNN’s most-watched prime-time show was Erin Burnett OutFront, which averaged just 610,000 viewers.
Watters landed the network’s coveted 8 p.m. slot in 2023 after Fox News fired Tucker Carlson, continuing a trend of elevating homegrown talent whose top loyalty is to the network and its pro-Trump, anti-Democrat programming strategy.
Watters’ odd mix of interests was apparent on his show Tuesday night, which mixed unfounded conspiracy theories about former President Barack Obama with dating advice for men “intimidated” about approaching women. All while avoiding talk of Trump’s connection with Jeffrey Epstein, which has been a growing controversy in Washington.
“Jesse is just the latest version of the time-tested Fox outrage genre — what they call ‘analysis programming’ — that uses hyperbole and sarcasm to identify the latest threat to conservatives, fan the flames of the latest conspiracy theory, and continue the network’s support of the MAGA agenda,” Young said.
Watters and Fox News currently facing a lawsuit over Trump call
Watters and Fox News are currently facing a $787 million lawsuit from California Gov. Gavin Newsom, who claims the network and its most-watched host knowingly lied about the details of a phone call with President Donald Trump during the peak of immigration protests in Los Angeles.
Newsom claims Watters knowingly lied about the timeline of his calls with Trump to defend the president. Newsom demanded a retraction and an on-air apology from Watters, who offered a half-hearted correction.
“We thought the dispute was about whether there was a phone call at all when he said without qualification that there was no call. Now Newsom’s telling us what was in his head when he wrote the tweet,” Watters said. “He didn’t deceive anybody on purpose, so I’m sorry, he wasn’t lying. He was just confusing and unclear. Next time, governor, why don’t you say what you mean.”
Fox News had hoped the correction would persuade Newsom to drop his lawsuit. In a letter sent to Newsom’s lawyers Friday and obtained by The Inquirer, Fox’s lawyers, Torridon Law PLLC, called the lawsuit “meritless” and demanded it be dropped following Watters’ clarification.
“If the Governor fails to withdraw the lawsuit as pledged, Fox News will pursue all remedies available against Governor Newsom in his individual capacity — not against his campaign account,” the letter says. “Our client cannot bring a frivolous lawsuit in his personal capacity and expect his donors’ funds to shield him from the financial consequences.”
Breaker Media’s Lachlan Cartwright was first to report on the letter.
“Gov. Newsom’s transparent publicity stunt is frivolous and designed to chill free speech critical of him,” Fox News said in a statement.
Why $787 million? It’s the same amount Fox News agreed to pay Dominion Voting Systems to settle a defamation lawsuit centered on the network’s false claims about the 2020 election. And Newsom does not appear interested in stopping his lawsuit.
“Discovery will be fun,” Newsom said in a statement to the Los Angeles Times. “See you in court, buddy.”
Not Watters’ first brush with controversy
Like many Fox News hosts, Watters has a long history of making controversial statements followed by half-hearted apologies.
Watters has promoted false theories about the 2020 election and was forced to walk back his praise of QAnon, a group of conspiracy theorists who believe Democrats and Hollywood celebrities are engaged in human trafficking and child abuse.
He was also forced to walk back inappropriate comments about former Vice President Kamala Harris and attacks on Muslims and Arab Americans, and he took an abrupt two-day vacation in 2018 after making a sexually suggestive remark about Trump’s daughter Ivanka.
In 2021, Anthony Fauci called on Watters to be fired after the Fox News host directed a crowd of conservatives to ambush the former top White House adviser and “go in for the kill shot.”
Less than a month later, Watters was promoted to prime time.
“I work at Fox. I wanna see disarray on the left,” Watters said at the time on The Five. “It’s good for America. It’s good for our ratings.”