>> JERRY FALWELL: David, I looked around just
now, and I noticed more and more often, I'm the oldest guy on the stage.
That never happened before, so I'm getting up there.
But we're so thrilled to have our guest here today.
You know the events of 2016 were so riveting that it was hard to pull yourself away from
cable news during that election year. It was just like nobody could have made up
what happened in a novel. It was so incredible, all the different events.
But it was so nice, after all the serious talking hits finished for Jesse Watters to
come on and give us some comic relief. He exposed how many low-information voters
there are out there, but he did it in a respectful way, in a comical way.
And I was just so impressed by Him, when we ran into him, Becki and I, at one of the presidential
debates, we invited him to come to Liberty, and he graciously accepted.
But he has his own show now on Saturday night at 8 o'clock: Watter's World. He's been— I thought IPTV never worked.
So, somebody must be watching it. Is that true by the way?
All right, somebody's going to be in trouble. But he's also done the segment Watter's World
on Bill O'Reilly. He started out as a production assistant,
and he worked his way up at Fox. He's got two twin daughters, and I didn't
catch your wife's name—Noelle. But he's happily married, and he was on Air
Force One last week interviewing the president. We are very honored and privileged to have
Jesse Watters at Liberty University today. Please give him a welcome. >> JESSE WATERS: How you guys doing?
I'm Watters, and this is my world. Thank you! ‘So, last time I was in front
of all these college students, I was doing some interviews for Watter's World, and I
said to one guy, "What year did America declare our independence?"
And the guy looks at me, and he says, "The 1980s!"
So, I didn't know that Reagan beat the Soviets and the British.
It's news to me. But that guy was in front of the marijuana
dispensary, so we're just going to let that slide.
I was going to wear my collar up today, but I hear wearing your collar up in Lynchburg
means a little something different, didn't want to give the wrong impression.
Last time I had my collar up, I had a pink popped collar, and Dennis Miller said I looked
like gay Dracula—not that there's anything wrong with that.
But I grew up in the 80s, and my parents were hardcore hippies.
My parents were tear gassed protesting the Vietnam War.
So, they would send me to these outdoor wilderness camps, and all I wanted to do was hang out
at the pool, so I rebelled. And I was in college, and I said, you know
what, I want to make a little money. Because that's what all my friends were doing.
They were going to Wall Street and making some cash.
So, I tried that, and it turns out you have to have a basic grasp of arithmetic to handle
millions of dollars of other peoples' money. So, I was quickly fired from my job, and then
got a new job working for the Pataki re-election campaign, governor of New York.
And we were running a candidate, Dora Irizarry. She was the attorney general candidate, and
we were running her against Elliot Spitzer. Remember Elliot Spitzer?
Well, he crushed us by about 30 points. We were in charge, my group, of doing opposition
research, and I guess we missed the fact that Elliot Spitzer was sleeping with prostitutes
up and down the East Coast. Could have been useful information.
So, he won, and then we all know what happened to Elliot.
But at that point, I was out of a job. So, I came to Fox News Channel, and I started
working 2 pm to midnight Tuesdays through Sundays, no health insurance, free-lance.
I was in the basement, and I sat next to a girl named Candy.
She dotted her ‘i’s with a heart. And then there was an opening on "The Factor."
And I said, “Man, I've got to get this job.” So, I went up, and I interviewed with O'Reilly.
And I went up to Bill's radio studio, and I sat down.
And he looks at me, dead silence. And he says, Watters, what's your father do?
Told him what my dad did, and more dead silence. And I said, "Bill, I really liked your new
book. It was a great read." And he perks up, and he goes, "You seem like
a smart kid. You start Monday." So, Bill hired me, but then he almost fired
me. We have a pitch meeting every week where we
get in a circle and pitch stories we think would be good for "The Factor," and Bill's
up there just crushing people. “That's not going to get a rating! “
“What are you, an idiot?” And I get up, and I pitch.
And Bill cuts me off and says, "Interns don't pitch! Next?"
And the producer says, Bill, you just hired this guy.
This is Jesse. He's your new production assistant. And he says, "All right, Watters, what have
you got? Go." And I pitch, and I bomb.
And that afternoon, my producer brings me up to his office, and he says, Jesse, unfortunately,
Bill does not think you're articulate enough to do the show.
You have one week to turn it around, or you're fired.
So, I panic, and I worked so hard the next week looking for good stories, trying to deliver
my pitches well, and eventually I got the hang of it.
And I'm at the next pitch meeting, and I said, “Bill, there's this judge down in Alabama,
and he just gave a very soft sentence to this sex offender who molested a young child.”
And Bill says, “All right Watters, you're going to go down to Alabama, and you're going
to confront the judge.” And I said, “Where is Alabama?”
I've been to Disney World. Yeah, Disney! So, the next day, I'm staked out at 6 am in
front of this court house in rural Alabama. Judge gets out, gets in the car.
We trail the judge through these backroads of Alabama.
I hop out of the car with them like, “Judge Bush, Judge Bush, how could you do this?”
And the guy says, “I'm not Judge Bush.” And I said, “But, Judge Bush—“
He goes, “I'm not Judge Bush; I'm a state trooper. But I'm going to tell Judge Busch
you're looking for him.” So, the first time I ambushed, I ambushed
the wrong guy. Word got back that the judge knew I was in
town. He said, “I'll read a statement to you on
camera in my chamber.” So, I call back to New York. And I didn't
tell Bill I booted the ambush, but I said, “Bill, he's going to talk to me. What should
I do?” And Bill says, “When he comes out in his
robe, yell at him!” And I'm 23; I'm a nice guy, but I'm terrified
of O'Reilly. So, judge comes out in his robe in his chamber.
Starts reading a statement, and I'm in the back, and I interrupted him.
"Judge, don't you have anything to say to the victim's family?
How do you live with yourself? Don't you believe in justice?"
And the judge gets frazzled. He scatters back to the chambers, and we bring
the tape back to New York. And we roll it, and Bill's happy.
But he brings me back up to his office, and he says, "Watters, good job down there in
Alabama. One thing though, your voice is too high-pitched for television.
You need a speech coach. Me? I never had that problem." So, that was Bill's advice to me. And I don't know if you guys remember this.
A few weeks later there was a very, very heinous case down in Florida.
A young girl, Jessica Lunsford, six-year-old child was kidnapped, repeatedly raped in a
trailer for four days while other people were in the trailer, and then buried alive by a
thrice-convicted sex offender. So, Bill was livid, and he wanted me to go
down and confront the slugs. Bill had nick-named the three other people
in the trailer “the slugs” for not ratting this guy out to the cops.
And these people were disgusting people. They were crack fiends—really horrific individuals. So, I go down to Homosassa, Florida.
I'm 25, don't know what I'm doing. 60 dollars for the hotel room, mosquito netting
over the bed, and I said, Bill, how do I catch up with these people?
Where do I go? These are off the grid people.
Bill goes, go to the local watering whole. Talk to the locals, get the drop on the slugs.
So, I go to Colonel Frogs, this bar down in Homosassa, and I'm knocking back two-dollar
beers with the locals, trying to get the drop on the slugs.
And they tell me where the trailer park is. I roll up on the trailer park.
And this guy pulls down the window. He goes, “They're over this way, over on
that trailer.” But they have two vicious dogs.
I'm a little afraid of dogs. Sorry. So, I go to the 7-Eleven, and I buy some snausages,
you know, some little Scooby Snacks to throw the dogs off.
So, we roll up on the trailer park, and these vicious dogs start charging me.
And they're barking, and they're carrying on.
And I grab the snausage. I throw the snausage down, and the dogs run
for the snausage, and they're distracted. And I keep rolling up to the trailer.
And we see this hideous woman, Dorothy Dixon, and she's scrambling around the trailer.
And I confront her on camera, you know. How could you do this? Why didn't you give
these people up to the cops? This girl could've been alive right now.
And we got great footage. And I call back to New York, and I said, Bill,
we got it. Bill goes, "Alright, Watters. Drive three hours North
to Tampa. You're going to be on the show tonight." And I'm still a little hung over from knocking
back drinks with the locals. I didn't have anything to wear either.
So, I drive three hours North to Tampa. Go to a Walmart—first time and last time
I've ever been in a Walmart. I mean, come on. I'm from New York.
And I buy a blazer and a tie at Walmart, and expensed it, obviously, and then go on the
air that night. And I did well enough, so Bill kept on putting
me on. And we used to run rough shod over these judges
for giving soft sentences to sex offenders. We had a lot of laws change across the country.
Jessica's Law, which I'm very proud of, mandatory, minimum 25-year sentence for first time rape
of a child under 13. Forty-five states passed that. Very proud
of that. And so, after I had kind of gotten a little
more seasoned, Bill came up with the idea for Watter's World.
And the concept was, he goes, “Watters, we're going to have you go out on the streets
and find out how much young people know.” It turns out, not so much. And he named the
segment after the biggest box-office bomb of all time, ‘Water World.”
The guy's got a great sense of humor. So, we started hitting the streets, and these
are some actual answers of Watter's World questions.
Are you guys ready? Who was the first president of the United
States? George Bush.
Or, who won the Civil War? France.
Or one of my favorites, who did America fight in the Vietnam War?
Not a trick question. South Korea.
I could go on and on, you want me to do some more?
I like this one. What body of water is on the East coast of
the United States? The Red Sea.
He was in LA, so— Or one of my other favorites: what do you
think about Ebola? It's nice.
It's funny, but it's also sad, because people are oblivious.
I'm not saying they're stupid; they're just not paying attention.
And this was basically the electorate a couple years ago.
So, this was the status quo, and we were facing an election.
And who was running? Who were the big shots?
It was going to be Hillary Clinton vs. Jeb Bush—the two most boring people in the world.
And these politicians can bamboozle and hoodwink oblivious individuals, and that's what's been
happening. That's why we're 20 trillion in debt.
That's why we have no weapons of mass destruction. That's why Obamacare is a disaster, because
people get fooled, because no one votes, and no one cares.
But then, down came the escalator Donald Trump. I mean I was looking at Melania the whole
time; I didn't even see Donald.
I'm not coveting her; I'm just saying— So, he comes down, and he gives this speech,
and he says the thing about the Mexican rapists, and all heck breaks loose.
And the media's just glomming on to that. Meanwhile, if you look at the news, there's
an illegal alien rape epidemic right now that the media’s burying.
But anyway, they're latched onto that, but they don't realize there's a new sheriff in
town. So, the next big event is the Iowa State Fair.
Now, for those of you guys who don't know what that's all about, that's where they have
deep fried butter, right? I've never been—
You kiss a pig, something like that. I don't even know.
I'm from Philly. Hey, all right!
So, this is where politicians pretend to be real people, and press the flesh, and try
to win votes. But what does Donald Trump do? In his $3,000 suit, lands his helicopter right
in the middle of the state fair, takes a bite of pork chop on a stick, and then starts giving
little kids a ride around on the helicopter. Totally owns the state fair, and the media's
missing this, because they're underestimating him.
And they're not realizing he's starting to resonate with regular people.
And the media's saying, you know, this guy's not serious.
He's not going to run. Remember, they said he wasn't going to win
the primaries and he wasn't going to win the general.
And then after he won the general, he was going to resign and let Pence go.
And they've been doing this the whole time. And then we have the San Bernardino shooting.
And what happened there was the guy never should have been let in the country.
We all know there was a huge, huge gap in screening there.
And Obama comes out, the president, and he says Islam has nothing to do with this, and
we need gun control. And Donald Trump comes out and says Islam
has everything to do with this, and if the good guys had guns, these guys would've gotten
taken out. So, at that point, Trump really elevates himself
to the same level as President Obama. And he's right in the national conversation,
right on the same level, really showing leadership qualities at this point. And we're rolling into the first debate. Do
you guys remember what happened at the first debate? A lot of energy. Fox News debate.
Megan Kelly comes up, and she's teed up. She's ready to go with this question.
You know, Donald, with the women, blah, blah, blah. You're so mean. You said this and that—“Only
Rosie O'Donnell.” And he wins the night on that alone, a homerun.
But that begins a year-long drama with Megan Kelly and Fox News.
So, there's a lot of behind the scenes negotiations going on, and the chairman gets involved,
and it's a mess, because Donald, you know, defends his honor, takes everything personally.
I understand that. And he drops out of the next debate, does
his own thing for charity. Ends up coming in second in Iowa, and who
beats him? Ted Cruz.
But, Ted Cruz then becomes "lying Ted." So, you all remember what happened at these
debates. "Little Marco," "lying Ted," I mean Trump
is a branding expert, and he's going middle school on these cats and knocking them down
one by one, just ridiculing them. "Low energy Jeb"—my favorite one was that
he called Mitt Romney “poor.” The guy's worth a quarter billion dollars;
he's “poor,” and apparently, he walks like a penguin.
So, Trump's just slaying these guys, and no one's ever seen anything like this before.
And it's fun, but he's winning and ends up winning the primary, and we're rolling into
the summer. And the campaign's a skeleton campaign.
The guy's got nothing going on back behind the scenes, so he's got to start boosting
things up. Then what happens?
Hillary Clinton. Comey comes out, FBI director, and everyone's
like this. “He's going to indict her. He's going to
indict her; here we go.” Saying she doesn't even know what this means,
and she's confused by her Blackberry, and it's a joke.
So, he comes up and says we're not going to indict her.
And if any of us had done anything close to what she did, we would have been indicted.
So, that becomes now the narrative of this system is rigged.
And in a way, it helps Trump, because he's now running against a rigged system. So, we're moving now into the RNC, and the
first night of the RNC, what happens? Melania plagiarizes the speech.
Poor Melania. Must have been a tough night at Trump Tower.
And, you know, the press is just joking around about all these knuckle heads, these B-list
celebrities like Scott Baio and the Duck Dynasty guys, and they're kind of missing the energy
and enthusiasm at the convention. I was in Cleveland.
There was a lot of love at that convention. And the press just missed that, so Trump comes
up at the end and gives this killer speech. America first.
Make America great again. Build a wall.
Drain the swamp. He starts hitting all the right notes, and
complete grand slam. And then the DNC comes along, and on the first
night, I think, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, the chairwoman of the DNC gets canned, because
she got caught rigging the primary against poor Bernie.
So, Bernie's troops are out in the streets with the dreadlocks, and the weed, and they're
angry. You know, it's a mess, and there's a huge
civil war going on in the Democratic Party that the press is not reporting on.
But I see it, because I'm in the streets. And Geraldo gets bottles of water poured on
him, and it's a mess. So, Hillary comes out, and is totally overshadowed
by every other speaker, because she's low-energy, and she slept walked through the entire race,
as we know. But what does Trump do instead?
He gets into an argument with a gold star family after that convention, and his poll
numbers plummet. So now he's really hitting the skids, and
he's got to start turning things around. So, what does he do?
Fires everybody—you're fired—and brings in a new team of fresh faces.
Bannon, Kellyanne, you know, real soldiers, great, talented people.
And Trump begins to read from a teleprompter. Now, we used to make fun of President Obama
for the teleprompter, but we love Trump on the teleprompter, now.
He's stopping riffing. He's not going off on tangents.
He's not telling people to punch people in the audience, and that's a good thing, because
now he's supposed to be, quote, presidential. And in August he turns this thing around.
You see the poll numbers come up, because he starts hitting these solid themes of keep
America safe, one term limit for the guys on Washington. And then Hillary starts coughing a lot.
Remember poor Hillary? And she starts taking lots of days off.
I don't know what she was doing. And then we remember— this is on camera—Hillary
faints. Are you clapping?
Wow. I mean I'd faint too if I was married to Bill, obviously.
So, she goes down, and people are worried about Hillary.
And the poll numbers start coming back up, and it's the first debate in Hofstra.
So, we're at the first debate, and Trump's bragging about how he's not studying, and
we're like, okay. Let's see how he does.
And the guy leaves a ton of meat on the bone, really could have hammered her, didn't.
And he did okay, but at the end, he gets into another fight with some beauty queen from
Venezuela or God knows where. And the numbers start going down again, so
we're getting a little nervous again. So, what happens next? Billy Bush happens
next. Locker room talk, and he gives kind of an
apology. But in traditional Trump style, doubles down,
and what does he do at the second debate? He brings every single Bill Clinton mistress
and alleged sexual assault victim to the debate and holds a press conference and hour beforehand.
You know, putting Paula Jones in eyesight of Bill. I mean Melania's already there, so
Bill's distracted. So, everyone's freaking out, and Trump comes
up and actually pretty graciously and effectively puts the locker room talk to rest, and then
comes out and just annihilates Hillary, completely destroys her in a very, very substantive,
fact-based way. And at one point he said if I was president,
you'd be in jail, and the house comes down. We had the "lock her up" chants coming, so
now, a strange thing happens. The numbers don’t improve, and I'm looking
at the polls and I'm thinking, why? Because this guy just obliterated this poor
woman, and he should be at least tied, and he's still down 10 to 15.
Something is not right. And then a series of things come out.
About a week or two before you have WikiLeaks, and it turns out the Clinton foundation's
full of corruption. Hillary has a public position and a private
position. Everybody hates Chelsea.
They're worried about bimbo eruptions, and no one's really reporting it except Fox news. And then another series of things begins to
happen. Obama premiums all the sudden come up.
James O'Keefe releases these hidden camera videos.
It shows Democrats bragging about how they commit voter fraud.
Democrats are admitting that they were sending in thugs to start fights at Trump rallies.
And the whole thing's starting to come unglued. Then Comey comes out, does his thing, reopens
the criminal investigation because of our friend Anthony Wiener.
Poor Huma. And you think he should be tied, but he's
still not. He's down now about five points.
And everyone thinks it's going to be landslide city.
Hillary's got fireworks ready to go, you know, champagne’s on ice.
And we have this third debate. The third debate was kind of boring even though
it was a Fox news debate. Don't tell Chris Wallace I said that.
But the only thing to come out of that debate was that when they asked Trump if he was going
to abide by the results of the election; he said, “maybe.”
I'll check it out, see what's happening. You know, because maybe there could have been
fraud, or it's close. And people said this guy's going to be a dagger
through the heart of the constitution. There's going to be a crisis.
And what happened? It turned out Hillary was the one that didn't
accept the results of the election. So, they vote, and the day before, Trump's
going to Michigan, and he's going to Wisconsin. You're thinking, what's this guy doing?
Why's he going to these places? Well I guess he knew something we didn't know.
That blue wall came down. And on election night, Trump wins, and Donald
Trump is the next president of the United States.
But Hillary doesn't even concede, and so what does the left do?
They start rioting. They start burning things.
They did the exact same thing that they had accused the right that they were supposed
to be doing if Trump had lost. So completely embarrassed themselves, and
then we hear about the Russians did it. Russia hacked the election.
Now the only hacking that effected the election was Hillary's cough, because I haven't seen
any evidence of any Russian hacking. Let me know if you guys find anything.
I don't know. But that seems to be where this is going. So, Trump's president. He's got the Trump
Tower transition deal going. You know, Kanye comes by and smooth.
And then he starts appointing people. You have a few mini-scandals.
He hits a homerun at the inauguration. I went to the ball.
It was a lot of fun. And then he gets this stem-winder at the State
of the Union. He's super-presidential.
Then he goes down; then he goes up. So, I need to interview this guy.
So, we lock in this interview in Nashville, and it's right before—what's up?
It's right before the speech, and we're in this little room.
And Trump comes in. Jesse, shakes my hand and yanks me right in
there. And I'm like this—power move city.
He says, does anybody have any hairspray. Someone gives him hairspray.
Sits down across from me—“Jesse, see the crowd out there? Not even letting them in.
20,000, 50,000, 130,000 people lined up.” “Mr. President, a lot of people out there.”
And, you know, he's still bragging about beating Hillary.
And he says, “See my poll numbers? Best they've ever been.”
And, you know, we sit down, do the interview. And I say, “Mr. President, do you mind if
I hitch a ride back on Air Force One? My flight was cancelled.” “Yeah, Jesse, hop on board.”
So, I climb into Air Force One, and I order some chicken over risotto.
And I hadn't even interviewed him yet, and I just asked for a water.
My camera man orders a Corona. I'm like, my man, we haven't even turned the
cameras on, all right. So, we come back there. We do a quick thing,
and then he tells me to turn the cameras off. And I'm busting his chops, and I say, "Mr.
President, why are we listening to NSYNC on Air Force One?"
And he goes, "Oh, NSYNC? Love those guys. Lance Bass is a stud. He's a good friend of
mine." And I said, "Lance Bass?"
He said, "Yeah, I was at this party the other day.
There was this Jets player from New York, big physique, and there was this really beautiful
woman with him. And Lance Bass walks by like this, and the
beautiful woman leaves the Jets player and goes after chasing Lance.
Lance Bass pulls a lot of chicks." And I said, "Mr. President, Lance Bass is
gay." And he said, “He is?”
He goes, “All right Watters, I'm going to talk to the failing New York Times right now.
I'll be right back.” So, the guy's doing fine.
Everything is going to be okay, but the lesson I'd like to just to just share with you guys
is I started from the bottom, rose to where I was because of hard work.
And the press has completely underestimated Trump at every turn, and you can't listen
to the fake news media. The only media you guys need to listen to
is Fox News. Thank you guys very much.
