Speaking during a late-August of 2024 broadcast of Fox News Channel’s “The Five,” co-hosts Jessica Tarlov and Jesse Watters got into one of their usual sort of spats, this time arguing over the nature of Vice President and 2024 presidential candidate Kamala Harris’ proposed economic policies, such as a 25% unrealized capital gains tax, that many on the right and left alike have characterized as radical.
Tarlov, as might be expected, didn’t characterize the far-left economic policies that way, instead highlighting what she characterized as the advantages of VP Harris’ policies, saying that she was trying to create the “opportunity economy” and that, for example, her $25,000 subsidy for first-time homebuyers would increase homeownership and improve the neighborhoods in which they sit.
Continuing, Tarlov then tried to goad Watters into a spat on her terms, bringing up Kamala’s claims that home ownership is something everyone aspires to. Doing so, she was obviously trying to force Watters to either have to agree with Kamala or seem unreasonable. She asked, “And when she talks about home ownership, which is something that we all aspire to… Right, Jesse?”
Watters, fortunately, didn’t fall for it. Instead, ignoring the question, he joked about not listening to her rambles. Doing so, the conservative co-host joked, “I wasn’t paying attention. What did you just say?” Tarlov, as might be expected, didn’t take it in stride. Instead, she snapped, “you’re really an incredible jerk sometimes.”
Commenters on X (formerly Twitter) were quite harsh in their comments about Tarlov. One, for example, wrote, “She was an erratic angry rabid raccoon tonight. Why do they tolerate her. I can’t listen to her anymore.” Even more harshly, another called her a witch, writing, “Her voice is like nails on a chalkboard, her logic is like that of dumb & dumber, her poise is like that of the wicked witch of the west. I feel sorry for her coworkers and family having to listen to her day in and day out; (as for me) I just flip the channel.”
Watch Tarlov here:
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More recently, the co-hosts of “The Five” had a spat about an economic speech Trump gave, with Tarlov claiming that Trump was “incoherent” in his speech. She said, “[T]oday was also about Donald Trump’s economic speech, and we watched a lot of it.” Continuing, Tarlov then added, “And I would dare any of you to listen to his answer on childcare and tell me what the hell he was talking about. It was one of the more incoherent things I’ve ever heard. He thinks tariffs are gonna pay for everything. We know that they’re attacks on the consumer.”
Featured image credit: screengrab from the embedded video