Fox News' Jesse Watters Mocks Immigrant Taxi Drivers
Written by Brian Powell
Published
A Fox News segment billed as an effort to uncover the opinions of New York City taxi drivers on immigration reform repeatedly mocked non-white immigrants' national origin and ability to speak English.
The July 1 video package, part of a recurring segment on The O'Reilly Factor dubbed “Watters' World,” featured clips of Fox contributor and O'Reilly producer Jesse Watters conducting man on the street interviews with cab drivers. Fox host Bill O'Reilly described the impetus for the segment, saying, “Many immigrants, both legal and illegal, drive taxi cabs. So we sent Watters out to check out that situation.”
The package interspersed brief clips of the interviewees, all of whom spoke with accents, with clips of movie characters who were often shown repeating the same phrase in a comedic accent. The characters, like Jim Carrey's Harry Dunne in Dumb and Dumber or Sacha Baron Cohen's Borat Sagdiyev in Borat!, were juxtaposed with the drivers in an unflattering manner that served only to ridicule their accents, the perceived depth of their comments, or their home country. At one point, Watters asked a participant, “Let me see your papers. I'm kidding around, I believe you.”
After the package played, O'Reilly questioned whether there were any women featured. Watters responded, “There was the one babe, with the red dress ... the nicest dressed taxi cab driver I've ever seen.”
Watters routinely misinforms Fox viewers and has a history of controversial comments that includes Watters asking, “Is there a Muslim problem in the world?”