It’s been said many times over this election cycle that no one has ever seen anything like this, that Donald Trump has fundamentally changed the way our political system works, and that Trump has given people carte blanche to say and do racist sh-t in more open ways than ever before. I guess this is just more evidence of that fact. Bill O’Reilly’s Fox News show, The O’Reilly Factor, sent their correspondent/political humorist (????) Jesse Watters to do a “man on the street” type of segment in New York’s Chinatown. To say that this segment was blatantly racist and extremely offensive is not even coming close to how vile this is.

That aired a few days ago and the clip went viral yesterday as horrified people were like “How did anyone think this was a good idea?” Watters seemed to want to be a Billy Eichner-type figure, or even CNN’s Jeanne Moos (who does delightful woman-on-the-street pieces). The Asian American Journalists Association issued a formal statement condemning the segment and Fox News for airing it. Go here to read more statements from Asian-American groups.

So far, Fox News has declined to comment in any way. They’re not defending him, nor are they firing him. Watters did defend himself on Twitter:

As a political humorist, the Chinatown segment was intended to be a light piece, as all Watters World segments are.

— Jesse Watters (@jessebwatters) October 5, 2016

My man-on-the-street interviews are meant to be taken as tongue-in-cheek and I regret if anyone found offense.

— Jesse Watters (@jessebwatters) October 5, 2016

It wasn’t political humor. Interestingly enough, it doesn’t seem like conservatives even want to justify Watters. The most they can say is “he’s not really racist, he’s just stupid.” WHY NOT BOTH?

Incidentally, Asian-American voters are increasingly progressive/liberal. That’s one of the largely ignored political trends of the last 20 years – a massive swing of support for Democratic candidates by a growing Asian-American community. We (I’m Indian-American) are one of the big reasons why Virginia is steadily “blue” these days, because VA has such a big Asian population. Hillary Clinton currently has a 44-point advantage over Trump among Asian-American voters. This Fox News segment is a great reason why that is.

Photos courtesy of WENN.