Jesse Watters nabs Tucker Carlson’s 8 p.m. slot at Fox News

Fox News said Monday that it has settled on a successor for Tucker Carlson in the channel’s prized 8 p.m. hour: Jesse Watters, a controversial commentator who has been with the network for two decades.

Watters, a 44-year-old Philadelphia-raised conservative who hosts “Jesse Watters Primetime,” will move back an hour from his current perch as host of Fox News’ 7 p.m. slot, the network said.

He will take the 8 p.m. reins beginning July 17, according to Fox News. Since Carlson was axed two months ago, the network has used a rotating cast of hosts to fill in for him..

Watters’ move comes as part of a broader reshuffling of Fox News’ programming planned for next month, as the network works to boost ratings that have slumped since Carlson’s exit.

Laura Ingraham will move into the 7 p.m. slot from her current spot at 10 p.m., and Greg Gutfeld of “The Five” will slide into the 10 p.m. hour, Fox News said. Watters is also part of “The Five,” a hugely popular 5 p.m. roundtable.

“FOX News Channel has been America’s destination for news and analysis for more than 21 years and we are thrilled to debut a new lineup,” Suzanne Scott, chief executive of the station, said in a statement.

“The unique perspectives of Laura Ingraham, Jesse Watters, Sean Hannity and Greg Gutfeld will ensure our viewers have access to unrivaled coverage from our best-in-class team for years to come,” she added.

Watters, who joined Fox News in 2002 as a production assistant, gained attention and notoriety at the network with often in-your-face man-on-the-street interviews on Bill O’Reilly’s show “The O’Reilly Factor.”

Watters drew the derision of New Yorkers in 2016 when he toured Manhattan’s Chinatown for a segment in which he asked racially insensitive questions. “Do you know karate?” Watters asked one man, apparently unaware that karate is primarily a Japanese martial art.

He later said he regretted the segment.

He launched a Saturday night show called “Watters’ World” in 2017, and moved into his current 7 p.m. daily slot in January 2022.

At the end of 2021, a month before his promotion to the 7 p.m. hour, Watters stirred outcry by using violent language — including the phrase “kill shot” — to describe how he thought Dr. Anthony Fauci should be interviewed.

Fauci said Watters’ remarks, delivered to a conservative conference, were “crazy” and “awful.”

“The guy should be fired on the spot,” Fauci told CNN.

Instead, Fox News defended Watters. The network said in a statement that Watters’ comments were taken out of context and that he was “using a metaphor for asking hard-hitting questions.”

Despite the Fauci dustup, Watters typically cuts a friendlier and more moderate tone than Carlson, said Jeffrey Blevins, a professor of journalism and public affairs at the University of Cincinnati.

“Not that he hasn’t said some outrageous things before or hasn’t had his share of controversy,” Blevins said of Watters. “He seems to smile a bit more — has a bit of a softer edge.”

“Jesse Watters is someone who resonates both with your strong conservatives and your more middle-of-the-road conservatives,” the professor said.

Watters also lacks the ties to former President Donald Trump that complicated Carlson’s tenure. Carlson’s final show on the network aired in April.

Fox News announced Carlson’s ouster six days after reaching a $788 million settlement with Dominion Voting Systems, which had sued over the role Carlson and other network mainstays played in propagating 2020 election misinformation.