Fox News’ Laura Ingraham appeared flustered, and stumbled over her words Monday when her guest failed to share the opinion she seemed to want of him.
Ingraham’s interview New England Patriots tight end Benjamin Watson went completely left when the pro athlete, who’d spent most the segment defending quarterback Drew Brees’ partnership with an anti-LGBTQ group, endorsed writer Jemele Hill‘s article calling for African-American athletes to abandon predominately white colleges and take their star power elsewhere.
NFL player Ben Watson (right) threw Fox News host Laura Ingraham for a loop Monday when he said he agreed with writer Jemele Hill’s article calling for an exodus of Black athletes from majority-white colleges. (Fox News / video screenshot)
The article, written for The Atlantic this week, has drawn the ire of folks on on the right, including Ingraham, who accused Hill of advocating for the “re-segregation” of America.
Watson begged to differ.
“When I saw the uproar over it, I read the article,” he told the prime time opinion show host. “I agreed with her. She had some great points in that article there.”
The NFL star also pointed to what he said was the fact that historically Black colleges and universities, which have pumped out a number of successful pro athletes, have struggled to compete with majority-white colleges since integration, a phenomenon he linked to a growing racial wealth gap.
“What [Hill] was saying was simply, if we are trying to pump money and revenue into some of these communities that there’s still this big disparity, this may be a way to do it,” Watson added. “Obviously that’s in a vacuum — there are other factors that figure into it, but when you read her argument, she lays it out very cleanly and it’s actually something that I agree with.”
Ingraham, visibly caught off guard, responded by telling Watson that his alma mater Duke University “would have not been thrilled about you’re not being there,” and argued that college sports would be far different “if we went down down a color-coded way of figuring out college admissions.”
“That’s re-segregating the country,” she exclaimed. “Why do we want that?”
Watson replied, claiming that segregation is government-mandated and that separation isn’t what Hill’s article was calling for.
“This is not segregation,” he said. “If you read the article …”
“I read the article,” Ingraham said, cutting Watson off and tossing the show to commercial. “I read the article. All right, we’ve got to go.”
Video of the cringe-worthy exchange has since gone viral, garnering plenty of reactions from the host’s critics.
“U can see the disappointment leaking from her stupid smile,” one Twitter user wrote. “Like she didn’t know that Jim Crow Segregation was gov’t mandated & not an option exercised by Black folks.”
Another pointed out Ingraham’s “cold, condescending, dead-eyed gaze … when she realizes Benjamin Watson is not saying what she wanted him to say.”
“Funny how she wanted so badly to go her way!” a fellow user agreed. “So much so he left her speechless.”
Ingraham’s take even drew a response from Jemele Hill, who tweeted what was so “hilarious” about the pundit’s stance was that she regularly “bitches and complains” about diversity while also spewing racist talking points.
Watch more in the clip below.
Welp, this definitely did not go as planned for Laura Ingraham. pic.twitter.com/aUPpf1mUsz
— Justin Baragona (@justinbaragona) September 10, 2019
