Fox News has supported him host Jesse Watters, despite Watters used the words “kill shot” in a speech encouraging young conservatives to approach Dr. Anthony Fauci in public with a hostile interview. Watters should be fired “on the spot,” says Fauci, who was asked about it on CNN on Tuesday. He predicts that Watters will not be punished for his language. Watters said that Fauci should be questioned about whether the National Institutes of Health paid for research at a lab in Wuhan, China, which is where the COVID-19 virus came from. He said an interviewer should think Fauci lied about the subject, which Fauci has said isn’t true.
A dangerous phrase with real consequences
A part of Watters’ speech, which started with the “kill shot” quote, went viral on the internet. Some people thought he had said that he wanted to kill Fauci. CNN’s John Berman called Watters “Fox News entertainer” during an interview with Fauci on Tuesday. Berman asked about the comments, but he didn’t show the clip. He said it was “dangerous.” Berman talked about a “rhetorical kill shot,” and asked Fauci how worried he was about the way Watters talked about this kind of thing. Fauci said that for two years, he has been urging people to protect themselves against COVID-19 by practicing good public health and getting vaccinated.
“Watters should be fired right away.” said Fauci during an interview on “60 Minutes” in October. He also talked about the death threats he had received and how he needed a security team. Tucker Carlson said last month that Fauci was like Benito Mussolini, the Italian dictator who led Italy during World War II. Lara Logan said that to some people, Fauci was like Nazi death doctor Josef Mengele. Fox News has not commented about what Carlson and Logan said about Fauci.
