A Liberal Mom’s Critical Texts to Her Son, a Fox News Host
Jesse Watters regularly reads messages from his mother aloud on air, exemplifying a political rift present in many American households.
Last February, on a Tuesday-evening television broadcast, the conservative political commentator Jesse Watters opined on several topics that reliably hold his attention and that of the other four panelists on the Fox News roundtable talk show The Five. He challenged a co-host who was questioning the usefulness of a border wall, called Brett Kavanaugh’s alibis when faced with s3xual-ass@ult allegati0ns “@irtight,” and belittled Democratic presidential hopefuls.
As the episode aired, Watters’s phone lit up with a series of text messages from an apparently incensed viewer: “I’m offended by a great many of your comments!” read one. “STOP YELLING AT JUAN,” read another, referring to Juan Williams, who is on the left side of the show’s political spectrum.
The sender was Watters’s mother, and it turned out that she had more feedback. After Watters referred to Elizabeth Warren as “Pocahontas” (something Donald Trump has often done), his mom admonished, “Do not name call and parrot Trump’s insults. That is beneath you.” The barrage of criticism ultimately took a loving turn, though: “One positive! Your tie knot looks better and you are buttoning your top button!”
Anne Bailey Watters’s motherly blend of reprimand and encouragement has inspired a sporadically recurring segment on The Five called “Mom Texts,” in which Jesse gleefully reads aloud (mostly critical) text messages from his very liberal mom. The segment, which first appeared two years ago, is hardly a model of measured political discourse, but it has provided a glimpse into how one man and his mother have navigated the ideological rift that has opened up in so many American families during the Trump era.
Jesse started receiving these text-message reviews of his performance after he joined The Five in the spring of 2017. “I used to read them to my co-hosts, and everyone just got a kick out of it,” he told me. He doesn’t remember if it was his idea or a producer’s to read them on air, but, he said, “I always thought they were gold.”
They are indeed amusing. “Please pronounce your ‘ings.’ The word is ‘putting’ not ‘puttin’,’” Anne advised her son two years ago. And after Jesse wore a salmon-pink blazer on the show in spring 2018, she texted him saying that he looked like a “ferris wheel operator.”
Anne also routinely addresses their serious differences head-on. One Mom Text was “Do your research about border security—you don’t sound like you have any facts!” Another was “I hope your Squad criticism can be just a tad more measured today … Please don’t sound like an old white guy who lacks any understanding of otherness.” A media personality might hear similar statements from any online commenter. But the thing that distinguished those two messages was the parental warmth of their final beats: The first ended with “You look tired—after a vacation?” and the second with “Love you so.” Even as Anne has taken issue with her son’s commentary on the House impeachment hearings, she has sprinkled some affection into her messages: “Please be assured that despite your WRETCHED political orientation I love you forever!” read a text broadcast last week.
“I always laugh,” Jesse said of how he reacts when the texts come in. Sometimes he sees them during commercial breaks, and usually his responses are acknowledgements of her messages: “I’ll [send a] thumbs-up or a ‘Hahaha’ or an emoji—laughing, crying, something like that.” The messages don’t have any effect on his political beliefs, though, he said. “She’s always telling me two things that are constant in these texts: One, stop screaming. And two, don’t be too much of a Trump supporter. I don’t really listen to either.”
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