King is facing backlash for the post following Watters’ controversial history of comments regarding women and race

Jesse Watters (left) and Gayle King.Credit : Gayle King/Instagram

Gayle King made a new and unexpected friend on a recent flight.

The CBS Mornings co-anchor, 70, surprised fans on Monday, Oct. 20, when she shared a selfie sitting with Fox News’ Jesse Watters on a flight. In the caption of her Instagram post, King revealed that the accidental encounter went better than some might think.

“Two TV people from competing networks walk on to a plane and to the surprise of them both, they’re seated right next to each other for over four hours,” she wrote. “How did it go? Speaking for @jessewatters here: A good time was had by all! Hi, Jesse…saving your number!”

The comment section was flooded with a variety of reactions, including some who praised King — a known Democrat — for setting her politics aside to speak with the conservative host, 47, while others called for her to delete the post altogether.

“I love how two people with completely opposite political views can end up sitting next to each other on a plane, share a few laughs, talk about where they’re headed, maybe even swap stories about their families — and genuinely get along. It’s a good reminder that kindness, curiosity, and a smile go a lot farther than our differences,” one user wrote.

Another agreed, commenting: “Great to see this! We all need to work harder at getting along!!”

However, many people expressed frustration with King for giving Watters a platform in light of remarks he has made about race, women and the government in the past.

“Gayle this is so disappointing,” one comment read. “I’ve truly lost respect for you. The issues facing our country are too dire at this moment to ‘play nice’ and have a cute photo opp with someone who’s dangerously spreading fascist propaganda.”

“Torn between ‘glad to see people moving beyond politics’ and ‘how could you talk to that chauvinist man’?!?” wrote someone else.

A third admitted, “I respect and love you, Gayle. Your seat mate, however, is harming our country….”

Gayle King; Jesse Watters.Mike Marsland/WireImage; Michael Loccisano/Getty

Watters has come under fire several times in recent years. In 2023, when Florida State Board of Education approved new academic standards requiring middle schools to teach students that enslaved people “developed skills which, in some instances, could be applied for their personal benefit,” Watters pushed back — and later doubled-down — against then-vice president Kamala Harris’ response that the guidelines pushed “revisionist history.”

“This is well-documented among historians,” Watters claimed. “This is historical fact that slaves did develop skills while they were enslaved and used those skills as blacksmiths, in agriculture, tailoring, in the shipping business, to then use to benefit themselves and their families once they were freed.”

He further said that the issue was “not controversial,” and stated that it “actually speaks to the resistance and the aptitude of the enslaved African Americans who were at the time able to better themselves and able to improve their situation despite brutal, brutal conditions.”

Shortly after Harris entered the presidential race in July 2024, Watters made controversial comments about masculinity in response to a “White Dudes for Harris” fundraising event, saying that he couldn’t understand why “any man would vote Democrat” because it’s “not the party of strength.”

“And to be a man and then vote for a woman just because she’s a woman is either childish — that person has mommy issues — or they are just trying to be accepted by other women,” Watters said, before adding the divisive line: “I heard the scientists say the other day that when a man votes for a woman, he actually transitions into a woman.”

Jesse Watters.Steven Ferdman/Getty

In 2025, he once again was met with criticism following a discussion during a segment on Jesse Watters Primetime about a clip of Harris and husband Doug Emhoff grocery shopping together.

“What kind of husband goes grocery shopping with his wife?” Watters asked, which some interpreted as being in jest and others took as misogynistic.

Last month, Watters claimed that staffers “sabotaged” the escalator and the teleprompter in the United Nations headquarters in New York City after it froze as President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump stepped onto the escalator, forcing them to walk up the steps during their Sept. 23 visit for the General Assembly.

During an episode of the Fox talk show The Five, Watters called the malfunctions “an insurrection and what we need to do is either leave the U.N. or we need to bomb it.”

“[The U.N. headquarters] is in New York, though, right? Could be some fallout there. Maybe gas it?” Watters continued. “Let’s not do that,” The Five co-host Dana Perino, 53, said off-camera.

Watters then said: “Don’t gas it. Okay, but we need to destroy it. Maybe can we demolish the building? Have everybody leave and then we’ll demolish the building.”

He reportedly later apologized to the United Nations.