Watters, 47, made the comment while speaking at Turning Point USA’s AmericaFest in Phoenix on Saturday, Dec. 20

Jesse Watters.Credit : Roy Rochlin/Getty

Jesse Watters joked that “drinking” may be the secret to his success at Fox News.

The Jesse Watters Primetime host, 47, made the comment while speaking at Turning Point USA’s AmericaFest, a multiday conservative conference and festival in Phoenix, on Saturday, Dec. 20.

A video of the moment shared on X shows Watters recounting an incident that he said occurred at the White House during Charlie Kirk’s posthumous Medal of Freedom Ceremony on Oct. 14. Watters said that he had gathered fellow conservative commentators and former Fox News hosts Tucker Carlson, Bill O’Reilly and Glenn Beck for a group photo.

Jesse Watters on his Fox News program, ‘Jesse Watters Primetime,’ on Oct. 13, 2025.John Lamparski/Getty

“I’m thinking to myself, ‘Wait a second. All these guys have been fired from Fox except me, and all these guys don’t drink except me,’ ” Watters said.

“The secret to my success is drinking,” he continued, eliciting loud laughter from the audience.

“[Fox News host] Greg [Gutfeld] doesn’t drink, so he’ll probably be gone next,” he added.

Carlson, O’Reilly and Beck all held hosting positions at Fox News at various points over the years.

Carlson, 56, departed the network in April 2024 in a decision that was said to be mutual, per a statement from Fox News at the time. The decision came after Carlson was featured prominently in a $1.6 billion lawsuit brought against Fox News by voting equipment company Dominion Voting Systems.

In the suit, Dominion claimed that Fox News pushed a false narrative of election fraud in the 2020 presidential election “to serve its own commercial purposes, severely injuring Dominion in the process.”

Tucker Carlson speaking at a memorial service for Charlie Kirk in Glendale, Ariz., on Sept. 21, 2025.Joe Raedle/Getty

Texts sent by Carlson, who often praised Trump on-air, were released as part of the court filings. In one of the exchanges, Carlson wrote: “We are very, very close to being able to ignore Trump most nights. I truly can’t wait.”

“I hate him passionately,” Carlson added, per The Washington Post.

In another exchange made public in March, Carlson wrote, “We’re all pretending we’ve got a lot to show for it, because admitting what a disaster it’s been is too tough to digest. But come on. There really isn’t an upside to Trump.”

O’Reilly, 76, parted ways with the network in 2017 in a decision that was also described as mutual at the time. His departure followed an April 2017 report from The New York Times stating that five women were paid a collective $13 million by O’Reilly and Fox News for agreeing not to file lawsuits or speak publicly about allegations that he harassed them.

O’Reilly responded to the report in a statement on his website the same day, stating that his position made him “vulnerable to lawsuits,” adding that “no one has ever filed a complaint” about him with the network’s human resources department.

Bill O’Reilly at an event in New York City in 2016.Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty

O’Reilly had worked at Fox News for more than 20 years.

Beck, often known for his controversial and incendiary comments, hosted a daily talk show that ran on the network from 2009 to 2011. The show was ultimately canceled amid low ratings, per NPR.

Beck, 61, made light of his departure at the time, telling his viewers, “There’s a lot more important news than, ‘What’s the big fat chunky guy doing for his future?’ When I took this job, I didn’t take it because it was going to be a career for me.”