Fox News' Jesse Watters Defends CNN, Calls Network's 'Whistleblower' a 'Rat,' 'Disgruntled Employee'
Fox News host Jesse Watters on Tuesday defended CNN and called the network's so-called "whistleblower", who made undercover recordings demonstrating the network's alleged anti-Trump bias, a "rat" and "disgruntled employee."
Conservative political activist James O'Keefe on Monday published the first part of what he has revealed will be a multi-part series. He claims the hidden camera clips, reportedly taken by "whistleblower" Cary Poarch—who claims he worked as a satellite uplink engineer at CNN's Washington bureau—captures biases against Trump and his allies at the network. The recordings include conversations with CNN staffers, as well as a call allegedly between CNN president Jeff Zucker and news staff, where Zucker encouraged his team to diligently cover Trump's impeachment inquiry.
"I'm not blown away by the content of it," Watters said during a Tuesday discussion about the leak on Fox News The Five, "I think that the president of CNN saying, 'We gotta follow impeachment, we gotta follow hard' is not breaking news. Or, that he said, 'Let's call out Lindsey Graham,' or that he said 'Fox News is destructive.' He's said that out in the open many, many times."
"The people that they did get access to seemed to me to be kind of low level players without any editorial power," the host continued, "and they said things like Zucker 'feels guilty about The Apprentice and now he's trying to get revenge' or that people in the elevator on election night were pretty bummed out at CNN. That's not breaking news to me."
Watters goes on to note that although he doesn't think CNN is "down the middle, straight news," he thinks "the guy is kinda a rat" and "more of a disgruntled employee."
He continued: "He's not a whistleblower because nothing else on that tape was illegal and I think he'll never get hired ever, ever again."
"I think one or two videos have come out and we're expecting a third. I'm anticipating something more, I'm excited, I think O'Keefe is a great journalist and a brave guy. He's looking for truth," Watters added apparently sarcastically, which prompted laughter from co-host Greg Gutfeld. "But at this point, I'm still waiting for bigger and more explosive things."
"That was very fair and balanced from Jesse," Gutfeld noted.
According to Forbes, O'Keefe is considered a "conspiracy theorist" and "provocateur of the far right," who once failed in tricking The Washington Post to cover a fake news story about Republican politician Roy Moore.
Prior to the release of the first wave of recordings, O'Keefe, who describes himself as a "guerrilla journalist," hyped the clips on social media with the hashtag #ExposeCNN.
