Jesse Watters has used his platform on Fox News to discuss all kinds of topics, but one of his favorite targets seems to be the unhoused population. In 2015, he drew criticism following a "Watters World" feature where he spoke to unhoused individuals at Penn Station. Throughout the segment, which took aim at Mayor Bill de Blasio, he asked unhoused citizens about their substance use. He also asked housed people to share why they are scared of unhoused people.
On a 2019 episode of "The Five," he turned his attention to California and suggested that authorities should destroy the encampments where unhoused people were living. "We saw drugged-out zombies chasing barefooted babies through piles of garbage with hypodermic needles and fire everywhere," Watters declared, per Media Matters. "You only have one solution. You bulldoze the 50-block radius, and you institutionalize everybody and detoxify them."
And as the Independent recounted in February 2022, he made another sweeping claim when Fox News aired clips of various unhoused individuals discussing their reluctance about entering shelters. "Now I think it's clear that homeless people, from the people who have spoken, want to be homeless," Watters asserted, blaming unhoused people for their circumstances.
