Fox News Host Jesse Watters Falls for Houston Flooding Shark Hoax

The Daily Beast reported Monday morning that the common hoax photograph of a shark swimming on a highway has resurfaced online amid disastrous flooding in Houston. And yet on Monday evening, Fox News host Jesse Watters gleefully fell for the well-worn prank, reporting it as fact during a broadcast of The Five. “I’ve seen some amazing things out there just looking at television,” Watters said of Hurricane Harvey news coverage. “Alligators on people’s back door steps. I saw a shark on a highway swimming in the water. There’s some really weird biblical things that are going on down there in Houston.” He later gawked that the non-existent image he believed to be real was “like Sharknado!” As it turns out, the shark-on-highway image has been deployed as a hoax during hurricanes Irene in 2011, Sandy in 2012, and Joaquin in 2015. On Tuesday morning, President Trump retweeted The Five promoting a Watters quote championing the president as having delivered “law & order.” Watters on Tuesday afternoon issued a statement via Twitter: “Yesterday, I made a comment about a shark in the floodwaters in Texas. I sincerely apologize if I caused concern or alarm to anyone. The folks there and beyond are suffering unimaginable hardships. My heart goes out to them.”