Fox News’ Jesse Watters is having a busy week, displaying all the talent that has led him to being the host of “Jesse Watters Primetime” and chief instigator on “The Five.”

Here’s a quick list. (1) He pissed on helping the homeless: “You can’t subsidize antisocial behavior you have to stigmatize it. These are people that have failed in life and they’re on their deathbed.” 2. He casually explained that Donald Trump was just “sifting through [documents] and determining which were personal and which were presidential.” 3. He compared not letting RFK Jr. come on his show to making a girl beg for a date. 4. He misidentified “The Five” panel member Jessica Tarlov as “Katie.” 5. In another episode, Watters cut off Tarlov, aka Katie, and threatened to “smack” her with his copies of the Presidential Records Act.

This kind of behavior is not out of character for Watters, who said last month that he knew that it was an, to use his phrasing, illegal immigrant family he saw clawing recyclables from a trash can, because “I can tell, I’m a city guy — you don’t want me to get into it.” (He could not tell.) He also proclaimed in 2022 that he let the air out of a co-worker’s tires so she would need him to give her a ride home. She became his second wife, and after his remarks caused a furor he backtracked and said he was just joking. (He so was not joking.)

He learned his tricks from the master. Watters has spent half his life employed by Fox News, where Bill O’Reilly — the original screaming at clouds/sexual harassment man — served as his Geppetto. O’Reilly turned Watters into a real boy of sorts by putting him on “The O’Reilly Factor” doing purportedly comic man-on-the street stories. The best known is a 2016 piece where he skewered people, who uh, didn’t speak great English in New York’s Chinatown while he tried out karate moves, and “Kung Fu Fighting” played on the soundtrack. The reviews included then-Mayor Bill de Blasio demanding he be fired, while the noted left-wing publication The Federalist declared “He’s a jerk who conflates being mean with humor.” (He ended up apologizing.)

Those kinds of notices lead to battlefield promotions at Fox, and now Biff from “Back to the Future” is the most-watched man on cable news. And that kind of sucks for the United States, who have come to expect some style and elan from their spin zone.

Earlier this week, Watters led his program with the news that nearly 90-year-old Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley had taken to the Senate floor and disclosed that a Ukrainian source told a government informant that Mykola Zlochevsky, president of the Ukrainian energy company Burisma, had paid $5 million each to Hunter and Joe Biden to make corruption inquiries go away. This had already been alleged, so Grassley needed to advance the story. The senator claimed he was investigating the informant’s allegation that his source claimed there was 17 recordings of Joe and Hunter hashing out the details of the payoff.  

The fact that Grassley was making these allegations the night before Donald Trump was about to be indicted surely was a coincidence.

“This allegation, if true, should lead either to the impeachment or immediate resignation of Joe Biden,” declared Watters. “’Primetime’ was shocked when we found this out just a few hours ago, but it would back up everything that the media has been lying to you about, and, if uncovered, would sink Joe Biden’s presidency and candidacy immediately. We believe that Joe Biden has been blackmailed by this for years, which would explain why he acts the way he does.”

For some time, Watters has been advancing the theory that every action that Biden makes as president — his border policy, stirring up racial division, blah blah — is because the Deep State has him dead to rights on bribes. “Isn’t it amazing that years after these tapes were made, Ukraine is at war on Joe Biden’s watch?” said Watters. “Billions and billions of dollars are pouring from our treasury into Ukraine, unaccounted for.”

This bit confused me. To protect the world from finding out about this so-called bribe, Biden had convinced Vladimir Putin to invade Ukraine so billions could be directed to his cronies. Whoa, if true! (Mostly likely not true).

There is a reason that this is just coming to light, according to Watters: reporters suck.

“The only thing keeping the Biden presidency alive is the sinister and seditious American media,” said Watters, arching his vast eyebrows. “We’re in a new phase now. And the future of the Republic is on the line.”

Watters’ accusations unwound quicker than the threading on an Old Navy shirt. Within 36 hours, Wisconsin Senator Ron Johnson was asked on Newsmax if the tapes were real. “We don’t know. And you know, Senator Grassley has never said they exist.”  Grassley himself then conceded “Maybe they don’t exist.”

Thursday night, Watters’ Fox News colleague Sean Hannity asked Kentucky Rep. James Comer, who is leading the congressional investigation into Biden, whether he had communicated at all with the alleged Burisma source. Comer offered up his permanently sheepish face: “Unfortunately, nobody’s had any contact with him for the last three years.”

This raises the question of whether the guy ever existed, or was just a character in some Beltway cosplay conspiracy game weekend adventure. Still, Watters pressed on. Ignoring GOP backtracking, Watters spoke of the bribes Thursday night as fact, and disappeared down a “Manchurian Candidate” K-Hole.

“The Biden family has been an intelligence job for at least a decade. Remember, Donald Trump wanted to close the border, take on the cartels, start a trade war with China and settle things down with Russia. This was bad for business for the most powerful people in the world. And Joe Biden was the perfect person to plant in the White House and stop it all.”

The fact that none of this would track in a straight-to-streaming thriller, much less in reality, is sort of the point. Watters is the playground bully who thinks if he punches you enough, you will admit that he is really smart. He is telling his viewers that the Deep State is pulling the strings, and they are all patsies.

O’Reilly, his Fox News papa, must be proud.

In between all the misdirection and misogyny, Watters took the time to read text messages from viewers. One watcher was particularly brutal: ‘Awful behavior Jesse…Where’s your humanity? Yuck Jesse…Please do your LEVEL best not to sink lower.’

The texts were from his mom. Watters played it off as a joke, but I’m pretty sure the joke is on him.