(PatrioticPost.com)- While speaking at a recent Turning Point USA event in Phoenix, Fox News host Jesse Watters suggested an ambush-style interview of Dr. Anthony Fauci may be the best way to confront him with questions about gain-of-function research. And in describing how to do it, Watters used the term “going for the kill shot.”
Watters was using metaphor to describe the interview process most commonly deployed by Project Veritas.
But a Fox News-hating Leftist posted a selectively-edited clip of Watters remarks to Twitter and accused Watters of using “incendiary, dangerous, violent rhetoric” to gin up a crowd to attack Fauci.
Then, on Tuesday morning, CNN’s “New Day” host John Berman played the out-of-context clip during his interview with Anthony Fauci, portraying Watters’ remarks as advocating a mob “ambush” Fauci in public.
Did Berman mistake Jesse Watters for Maxine Waters? Advocating for a crowd to go after public officials is Maxine’s thing.
After playing the clip, Berman asked Fauci how he feels about Watters advocating violence against him.
Unsurprisingly, Dr. Fauci was outraged. Describing the selective-edited clip of Watters’ remarks “horrible,” Fauci suggested that Jesse Watters “be fired on the spot.”
“Fired on the spot” for using metaphor to describe how to get Fauci to answer questions on gain-of-function research.
You can’t blame Fauci entirely. He didn’t know any better. Berman played a cherry-picked clip that stripped all context out of it. Fauci could only comment on what CNN permitted him to see.
The “Facts First” network’s dirty trick was so egregious, even the Left-leaning fact-checking site Snopes determined the claim that Watters was advocating for violence against Fauci was FALSE.
Jesse Watters’ co-host from The Five, Greg Gutfeld hammered CNN and John Berman for their deceptive lie, pointing out on Twitter that if Jesse Watters was a private citizen, he could sue CNN. Calling Berman out by name, Gutfeld told him to “be a man” and correct his reporting.
CNN has not corrected its reporting.
Fox News released a statement last week noting that a review of the full transcript and video made it clear that “Watters was using a metaphor for asking hard-hitting questions to Dr. Fauci about gain-of-function research.” The statement concluded that Watters’ words were being “twisted completely out of context.”
