The Daily Beast
Ex-Fox News Women Slam Jesse Watters for Victim-Blaming Cuomo Harassment Accusers
John Lamparski/GettyFox News’ resident macho man Jesse Watters—who built his professional reputation, such as it is, by stalking liberals on camera, many of them women, on behalf of his predatory boss Bill O’Reilly—received a rhetorical slap in the face Thursday for his recommendation that women solve the problem of workplace sexual harassment simply by slapping their male harassers.“I would suggest that women—and I’ve gotten in trouble for saying this before—you slap the man in the face. And you do it immediately,” Watters opined on Wednesday’s episode of The Five during a discussion of the sexual harassment and unwanted touching allegations against New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo. “Because if you wait too long, the politician feels like he can keep doing this, and it doesn’t matter if it comes out a year or three years later. Do it immediately. When he’s fresh.”Several former Fox News women, who received monetary settlements and left the company after being targeted by harassers at the Donald Trump-friendly channel, reacted to Watters’ prescription with withering disgust.“Women all across America are very pleased to have Jesse Watters mansplain to them,” former Fox News political analyst Julie Roginsky told The Daily Beast, “but Jesse Watters might have observed while working for two harassers [late Fox News Chairman Roger Ailes and O’Reilly] that women are already facing the risk of professional retaliation by not going along with the harasser’s wishes.”Roginsky—who left Fox News in 2017 after settling a sexual harassment and retaliation lawsuit against the company, Ailes, and his deputy Bill Shine—added, “If the women got violent with the harasser their career would be over. Many are bound by forced arbitrations and NDAs at the start of their jobs. They couldn’t tell their stories. The better suggestion from Jesse is to put the onus on his fellow men to not harass women.”Ed Henry’s Accusers Say His Behavior Was an Open Secret at Fox NewsFormer Fox News anchor Gretchen Carlson, whose July 2016 sexual harassment lawsuit against Ailes resulted in his being ousted in disgrace, agreed.“Suggesting that women should slap their perpetrator is re-victimizing the victim in the sense they should fix the problem they have nothing to do with,” Carlson told The Daily Beast. “The responsibility to stop harassment, primarily a man’s issue, should not fall on a woman to fix it. It’s similar to other excuses that women should leave their jobs or move to another department rather than looking at the real problem. It’s another cover-your-ass reaction rather than working to fix the problem.”In a tweet, she added, “Not to mention how idiotic it is to assume slapping a predator would somehow change them. And that it should be up to the woman to slap instead of predatory to just not harass.”In an emailed response to The Daily Beast, Watters said he had been misunderstood: “This kind of predatory behavior needs to stop immediately and it’s 100% the harasser’s responsibility to stop it. My intention was to defend victims and hold inappropriate politicians accountable—any suggestion otherwise is a misinterpretation of what I said.”Other women who spoke to The Daily Beast about Watters’ remark—several of whom signed non-disclosure agreements as part of cash settlements of lawsuits—asked to remain anonymous in order to avoid potential retaliation by Fox News Media or its parent company Fox Corp.“It is simple to say ‘just slap him in the face,’ and while that might garner the woman short-term cheers, it would almost inevitably condemn her professional career, especially in broadcasting,” said one former Fox on-air personality. “If every man at Fox who made inappropriate comments was slapped at that moment, you would have a lot of red-faced men walking…