SIDE-EYE

Jesse Watters Skewers ‘Off-Putting’ Must-Win Trump Candidate

The Fox News host tore into more than just Ken Paxton’s looks.

Jesse Watters has a problem with the President Donald Trump’s Senate pick in Texas, and it’s not just his politics.

The Fox News host, 48, took aim at Ken Paxton on Thursday’s The Five.

The panel was discussing the race between the 69-year-old and his Democrat opponent, James Talarico, when Watters chimed in.

Talarico, 37, is a progressive populist and is joining the party’s rising progressive wing. Billionaires are a primary target. He even bought a Super Bowl ad declaring that “billionaires don’t just influence politicians, they own them,” Bloomberg Law reported.

Watters went after Paxton while his co-hosts tore into Talarico.

Co-host Emily Compagno, 47, accused Talarico of softening his left-wing views on abortion and trans issues to win over Texans.

“Like any way you slice it, he appears either weak or horrifying, right?” she asked. Talarico spent years championing trans rights in the Texas legislature. But since winning the nomination, he has backed away from some of his positions, The Washington Post reported.

Watters responded, saying there’s “something off-putting” about the Texas attorney general just days before Texans start voting, in a race where a Fox News poll shows Talarico narrowly ahead.

“But he’s running against Paxton, and Paxton has a lazy eye,” he said, looking dubious.

“And this whiff of corruption around [him], even though he was like the best attorney general in the country for the last eight years, there’s just something off-putting about him.”

Paxton has suffered a string of leaks before in the must-win race. A leaked campaign memo warned donors that Talarico holds the advantage on the airwaves, with $65 million in ads spent or reserved at cheaper rates than Paxton’s team can get. In September, audio was leaked from a private Washington fundraiser catching Paxton blaming Trump’s Dallas convention for sinking his numbers.

Last week, The New York Times published a leaked 2014 deposition from a federal fraud probe. In it, Paxton told SEC lawyers he couldn’t recall details more than 200 times and blamed his tax returns on his now-estranged wife. Days later, The Wall Street Journal reported claims that Paxton spent New Year’s Eve 2024 partying in Dubai with his girlfriend and two men charged with healthcare fraud in the U.S.

On The Five, Watters said the unease about Paxton was coming up in his own conversations. He recounted speaking with a man in neighboring Oklahoma who told him Texans were souring on both men.

“I’m hearing from a lot of people in Texas that they’re definitely not voting for Talarico, but they’re still having trouble bringing themselves to vote for Paxton,” Watters said, relaying the man’s words.

Watters said he then checked in with “my guy,” a Paxton mega donor, who pointed to private polling.

“They still think Paxton wins by about two or three,” Watters said.

Then he turned his fire back on Talarico.

“So you know, between the veganism, the gay rumors, being against capitalism and global warming and fantasizing about trans kids, this guy just can’t cut it in Texas,” Watters said, mixing digs at Talarico’s politics with baseless rumors about his personal life that MAGA figures have pushed for months.

In the same breath, however, he conceded that only one thing was keeping Republicans afloat: cash.

“Thank God we have more money than they do or else this could be curtains for Republicans,” he said.

Paxton’s campaign and Talarico’s campaign did not immediately respond to the Daily Beast’s requests for comment.

Texans head to the polls on Election Day, Nov. 3, with early voting kicking off Monday.

See more of our coverage in your search results.

ADD THE DAILY BEAST ON GOOGLE

Briana CharlesReporter

Got a tip? Send it to The Daily Beast here.