Fox News kept putting Pete Buttigieg on their air and he kept schooling them. Or more accurately taking them to the woodshed for a good old fashioned whipping. I for one kept hoping others would learn from Pete how to do the same thing. White Dudes For Harris founder Mike Nellis seems to have picked up some pointers from Buttigieg. He went into his interview on Jesse Watters Primetime and he came loaded for bear.
You can see a terrific exchange between Nellis and Watters in this article by Mediate. (Sorry, I looked for it on YouTube to post it directly here but couldn’t find it) Watters was… well Watters cheerfully spouting what he knew was bullshit and lies and Nellis bluntly called him out. If I’m not mistaken, Watters assumed Nellis and other ‘White Dudes For Harris’ were embarrassed for having supported her. Watters found out he was wrong, and worse with a guest that was able to wrest control of the dialogue from him!
Mediate describes the exchange, where after a short preamble about not expecting a confession Watters asks (with a smirk) ‘Are you still supporting Harris. I don’t think he got the answer he was looking for as Nellis was anything but defensive or ‘apologetic.’ What Nellis was was calm and confident as he did a marvelous takedown of Watters’ condescending attitude:
“Listen, I prefer Kamala Harris for president right now, and honestly, I think a lot of Americans agree with me,” Nellis replied. “Fox News’s own polling has Donald Trump’s approval rating cratering. He’s negative 30% on the inflation. I think people are awfully frustrated with the leadership they’re getting right now. That doesn’t mean they like Democrats, but they’re not happy with what they’re getting.”
Ouch. You’d think Watters would have realized he didn’t have a guest he could browbeat, and even worse one who could like Buttigieg turn the tables on him and make HIM look stupid. Fortunately for us, as with Buttigieg Watters was a typical Fox host that didn’t know to quit when he was behind. He of course he didn’t.
Instead, even though Trump’s been back for over six months now and has initiated sweeping changes (including forcing through the massively unpopular BBB) Watters attempted to play the ‘He’s not had a chance”/’Just getting started” card. For good measure Watters included the claim of a Trump ‘landslide’ and asked whether anyone in the Democratic Party was thinking it’s time to do things differently. It seems Nellis was ready for THAT one and cut Watters off at the knees:
While Nellis conceded that Democrats need to recalibrate, he objected to the claim that Trump won in a “landslide.” Moreover, he told Watters to look at Fox’s polling:
NELLIS: Yeah, I think a lot of people are doing the work of talking about how we build a new Democratic Party. Let’s keep in mind, Donald Trump didn’t win in a landslide. He won by 185,000 votes in three swing states.
WATTERS: Well, he won every battleground. Are you saying it was close?
NELLIS: He won every battleground state, but the race itself was close. I think it would be a mistake for Republicans to assume that they have a landslide. Take a look at your own polling if you don’t believe me.
Game, set and match. To Nellis. Yes, there was some additional discussion about either side making too many assumptions about Trump’s win. However despite what you might think of Fox News hosts and the bullshit they dump on viewers they do have some parts of their operation that are professionals and play things straight.
Trump has never forgiven the network for their “Decision Desk” saying Biden would win Arizona when the news bosses and “talent” wanted to make it seem like the state was still up for grabs. But the folks crunching the numbers stood their ground and refused to play along with the narrative the ‘talent’ wanted to pitch. Fox also has a pretty solid polling division. Their own polls, like everyone else’s show Trump’s support IS dropping like a rock. On multiple issues. Watters and the other ‘talent’, the hosts know damn well Trump’s numbers are bad and getting worse. They know from their own people what all the other polling they dismiss (echoing Trump’s ‘fake news’) says is accurate because their own operation gets similar numbers. So they simply avoid talking about it.
THAT is what makes Nellis’ pointed “Look at your own polling” so entertaining. Watters knew damn well the truth of things but he knew it would cost him his job to admit it! To paraphrase Col. Kilgore in Apocalypse Now, “I love the smell of burnt to a crisp by Napalm Fox News personalities. I urge you to take a minute and clink on the link, and watch Watters get his ass handed to him.
************************************
Friends, if you can help us with a small donation or an ad-free subscription, it would be appreciated. We are attempting to get through a year of depressed traffic and make it to 2026, where the grass will hopefully be greener due to the midterms. Thank you. Ursula
