Fox Host Jesse Watters could not actually comprehend that Joe Biden loaned his brother $200,000 which that brother repaid in 2018, and there was no quid pro quo because Joe Biden was not in office, nor was he seeking office.
October 31, 2023

Jesse Watters plays the spoiled child turned bully on Fox News especially when he can bully women, a particular specialty of his dating back to when he used to stalk them for Bill O'Reilly's show. Monday on The Five, he spent two minutes haranguing Jessica Tarlov because she insists (correctly) that the $200,000 check paid to Joe Biden by his brother in 2018 was not any kind of quid pro quo.

He began with a loud, nonsensical monologue.

"Jessica and her ilk for years have said, well, you don't have money going directly into Joe Biden's bank account. All right. So now we have a check for two hundred thousand dollars from one company through the brother to Joe's bank account," he snarled. So actually, all we know about that check is that the brother wrote a personal check for $200,000 to Joe from the brother's joint account with his wife. I've seen no evidence the funds came from one company, but if Joe loaned his brother James some money as a bridge loan until money came in, that's not a crime, nor is it money laundering.

Watters, knowing we are thinking this, said, "You still say, OK, well, that's not from overseas. That was a loan."

"OK, OK, OK. What happens if the next check originates somewhere really bad, Jessica?" he wondered. "And I mean, really bad. And it goes through Hunter or it goes through James and it goes directly into Joe Biden's checking account."

"Is that your smoking gun?" he asked, pretty aggressively targeting Tarlov, who couldn't get a word in edgewise. "Is that your smoking gun, Jessica, because you said that was a smoking gun."

I'm pretty sure Tarlov said a check from a foreign entity paid directly to Biden would be the smoking gun, which Watters acknowledged. "If money went from overseas directly into Joe Biden's bank account, if a check comes out at some point from that avenue. Is that a smoking gun?"

Tarlov, ready to reply at some point, tried to interject at this point, but Jesse was on a roll and wasn't going to let the woman speak while he still had venom to spew. She did finally get a word in edgewise to suggest that the check he received in 2018 was received when Biden wasn't doing anything. She further tried to explain that the check isn't anything without an connected action, but Watters wasn't having it.

It got so bad that at some point, she looked at him and said, "You are yelling and there's no reason for it."

"There's reason," he shot back. "I was promised a smoking gun, and if I deliver a smoking gun you have to admit that gun is smoking."

Except there is no smoking gun. Jesse Watters is just hoping against all hope that if he yells long and loud enough no one will care about the facts because they'll just be enamored of the bully he is.

This display is why Fox News is a menace. There were no facts here beyond the obvious: James Biden and his wife borrowed money from Joe and paid it back. No smoking gun, no nothing, so they just outrage themselves into a story that isn't there.

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