‘Fox News is putting a target on the back of top scientists’: Fellow medics back Fauci in Watters row

Fallout continues from Jesse Watters’ Turning Point USA speech

Dr Anthony Fauci gives an update on the Omicron variant during the daily press briefing at the White House (Getty Images)

More health experts are calling for Fox News to take some kind of action after one of its most prominent hosts, The Five’s Jesse Watters, used inflammatory language while describing a hypothetical scenario in which activists harassed Dr Anthony Fauci of the White House’s Covid-19 response team.

The controversy began over the weekend when Mr Watters spoke at the annual Turning Point USA convention, a meeting of the conservative youth organisation that was this year held in Phoenix, Arizona.

On Tuesday, dean Dr Peter Hotez of Baylor College of Medicine’s National School of Tropical Medicine joined CNN to address his own experience in Fox News’ crosshairs, where the network’s hosts have also frequently been critical of the Covid-19 coverage on Fox, particularly its opinion side.

“Look, this is not this one individual,” said Dr Hotez. “Laura Ingraham has gone after me on several nights, and what follows is a series of e-mails that call on patriots inciting them to violence against me and my family.”

“This is a systematic attempt by the leadership of Fox News to target not only the science, not only to discredit vaccines, but to put a target on the back of scientists — prominent U.S. scientists,” he continued.

The Independent has reached out to Fox News for comment on his accusation.

At the event over the weekend, Mr Watters used his onstage address to encourage attendees to “ambush” Dr Fauci, who runs the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, in public confrontations similar to the style used by TMZ or, more controversially, by right-wing activists at Project Veritas, a group that uses hidden cameras and often edited footage in attempts to embarrass political enemies. The group recently faced accusations of bribing a man who said he was paid to make false claims aimed at embarrassing Rep Ilhan Omar, which it denied.

Mr Watters said that Dr Fauci should be confronted on the subject of whether the National Institute of Health funded research at a lab in Wuhan China, the city where the COVID-19 virus originated. He said an interviewer should suggest he lied about the topic — something Dr Fauci has disputed.

“You got to ambush a guy like Fauci. OK, this is how you do these ambushes like [Project Veritas founder James] O'Keefe. You got to be respectful because they'll turn the tables on you and you can't have it blow up in your face,” said Mr Watters.

At one point, he switched over to almost exclusively gun-related metaphors: “Now you go in for the kill shot. The kill shot .. whew, with an ambush, deadly. Because he doesn’t see it coming,” said Mr Watters.

He then added, backing away from the language: “This is when you say, Dr Fauci, you funded risky research at a sloppy Chinese lab,” referring to funding of research at a Wuhan-based virology lab that has been the center of accusations for the “lab leak” theory of the origin of Covid-19.

“Just make sure it's legal,” Mr Watters added.

His remarks were initially criticised by Dr Fauci, who has been increasingly critical of misinformation being spread about Covid-19 as well as conspiracy theories spread about himself and other public health officials.

“That’s awful that he said that. And he’s going to go very likely unaccountable. I mean, whatever network he’s on is not going to do anything for him. I mean, that’s crazy. The guy should be fired on the spot,” Dr Fauci told CNN’s John Berman.

Fox defended Mr Watters from those calls, and claimed that Dr Fauci and others were taking Mr Watters’ remarks out of context.

“Based on watching the full clip and reading the entire transcript, it’s more than clear that Jesse Watters was using a metaphor for asking hard-hitting questions to Dr Fauci about gain-of-function research and his words have been twisted completely out of context,” the network’s spokesperson said.