When Commentary Crosses a Line — Jesse Watters and the Dismantling of Decency

Friends,

If there’s one thing last night’s broadcasting disaster confirmed, it’s that we’ve entered an era where the boundary between televised rhetoric and irresponsible incitement is so thin it practically evaporates on cue.

Let’s review the facts (so we don’t lose any in the fog of outraged sound bites):

• On the September 23 episode of The Five, Jesse Watters reacted to the U.N. teleprompter cutting out and an escalator malfunction by declaring the events “an insurrection.”  
• But that was only the appetizer. He then proposed we bomb the U.N. or “maybe gas it.”  
• His co-hosts and producers laughed — yes, laughed — as though this were a dark joke on a late-night sketch.  
• When probed later, a U.N. spokesperson said the escalator stopped because a U.S. delegation videographer accidentally triggered its safety mechanism.  
• Media later clarified someone from the White House, not the U.N., ran the teleprompter — essentially pulling it from the “enemy sabotage” script totally out of narrative.  

If this reads like the script of a slapstick satire gone off the rails, that’s because it is. What Watters did wasn’t commentary. It was the theatrical co-option of violence, masked as “analysis,” performed on live television.

Why this matters — more than spectacle

1. Normalization of violent languageWhen a mainstream pundit starts using “bombing” or “gassing” in response to a simple technical glitch — and is met with giggles rather than rebukes — we inch closer to a media environment where intimidation and threat become standard discourse. That’s dangerous.
2. Security & accountability get sidelinedA real investigation would look into actual mechanical failures or miscommunications. Instead, we get conspiracy theories on steroids. The facts don’t matter — the narrative does.
3. Undermining institutions through spectacleIf you’re being told the U.N. should be destroyed because a teleprompter misbehaved, your trust in any institution is already being eroded. That’s the intention — distracting you with outrage, not answering real questions.
4. Complicity via laughterThe co-hosts and production didn’t fact-check or temper the absurdity. They laughed along. That’s collusion. That’s approval by inertia.

What should happen now

• The network (FOX) and producers should issue a public apology — not a “mistakes were made” shrug, but a clear condemnation of the rhetoric and a promise to scrutinize such language in the future.
• Journalistic and media oversight bodies should examine whether calls to bomb public international bodies constitute incitement or a breach of broadcasting ethics.
• We, the audience, must demand higher standards. We should question, call out, and refuse to normalize televised threats.
• We should support organizations that defend press responsibility, cross-check media claims, and hold platforms accountable.

Final word (for now)

What Jesse Watters uttered on national television wasn’t a slip of the tongue. It was a calculated escalation — an attempt to manufacture crisis out of chaos and broadcast it as plausible policy.

We should demand better — from networks, from hosts, and from ourselves as consumers of media. Because if threats become routine, then resistance must become routine too.

Julie Bolejack, MBA