Fox News host Jesse Watters could not even make it a week in his new prime-time slot without offending his audience and colleagues. Watters announced that he is taking an abrupt vacation after his offhand comment about Ivanka Trump stirred a controversy.
"I'm going to be taking a vacation with my family, so I'm not going to be here tomorrow," Watters said during Wednesday's "The Five." "I'll be back on Monday, so don't miss me too much."
Last week, Watters scored a promotion to be a co-host on "The Five" after Fox News reshuffled its prime-time slate to accommodate O'Reilly's departure. Watters had been a roving correspondent for "The O'Reilly Factor" and even hosted a spinoff show called "Watters World."
Alas, Watters' young, burgeoning career as a conservative pundit could be in danger. The last time a Fox News personality announced an unanticipated vacation, he never returned. On Tuesday, Watters made an inappropriate remark about the president's daughter.
“It’s funny, you know, the left says they really respect women and then when given an opportunity to respect a women like that they boo and hiss,” Watters said. “So I don’t really get what’s going on here, but I really liked how she was speaking into that microphone.”
On Wednesday morning, Watters took to Twitter to clarify the joke he made during the previous night's show.
Hours after that tweet, Watters announced his abrupt vacation. Perhaps the executives at Fox News, who are surely more cognizant of sexual harassment, did not find Watters' clarification convincing.
His excuse, that he was merely complimenting Ivanka's "smooth jazz" voice, is difficult to reconcile.
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