Jesse Watters tried to denigrate the horrors of a 10-year-old rape victim barred from having an abortion in Ohio by calling it a hoax. It turns out the rapist has confessed, pleaded guilty and been sentenced to life in prison.
The case garnered national attention, as CNN noted, in the wake of the Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade. Apparently, Watters decided that defending a 10-year-old’s forced birth was not a good look for him, so he decided to baselessly accuse the Indiana doctor who provided the abortion and the rest of the media of making the whole thing up.
From my post on Crooks and Liars yesterday, quoting Watters’ 2022 smear on the Jesse Watters Primetime show:
"Are you telling me no one is trying to arrest the child rapist in Ohio?" Waters said. "Because I know Ohio. And they don't tolerate that there. So, where do we stand?"
"If this horrific story isn't accurate, and the abortion doctor and the Indianapolis Star are misleading us, and the mainstream media and the President of the United States seizing on another hoax -- this is absolutely shameful," he added. "And fits a pretty dangerous pattern of politically timed disinformation."
I also noted in my post that while Watters attacked the media for supposedly inaccurate reporting, he didn’t indicate having made any effort at all to find out the truth. It’s not like he doesn’t have any colleagues capable of doing their own independent investigating.
Maybe Watters was afraid of finding out the truth. The man who admitted raping the girl twice, when she was nine, then pleaded guilty to two counts of rape, was sentenced Wednesday to life in prison, CNN reported.
With great eagerness today, I watched the Jesse Watters Primetime show recorded on Wednesday and Thursday (when Jeanine Pirro was guest hosting) and didn’t hear a peep of a correction, much less an apology. Ditto for today. I'm keeping an eye on it now, with Pete Hegseth hosting, as I write this.
In the wake of the Dominion defamation lawsuit settlement, Fox Corp. CEO Lachlan Murdoch claimed that the network has a “commitment to the highest journalistic standards across our company.” Watters' uncorrected smear proves that a lie. Again.
(Image via screen grab)