Is Fox News Bringing on FAKE Guests? (w/ Jack Cocchiarella)

Summary

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Bulwark Takes: Is Fox News Bringing on FAKE Guests? (w/ Jack Cocchiarella)

Podcast Episode Date: October 11, 2025
Host: Tim Miller (C), with Jack Cocchiarella (B)

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Episode Overview

In this episode, Bulwark Takes examines the latest controversy swirling around Fox News, specifically Jesse Watters’ alleged use of a recurring, possibly fictional guest who claims variously to be an Antifa whistleblower and an ex-Mexican mafia member. Jack Cocchiarella joins Tim Miller for a spirited, unfiltered breakdown of the tactics employed by Watters and Fox, the outlet’s penchant for fear-mongering, and the culture of political violence and cruelty encouraged in the right-wing media ecosystem.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Fox News’ Alleged Use of Fake Guests

• Recurring Guest Allegation:
  Jack and Tim dive into claims that Jesse Watters has been bringing on a single, masked guest on Fox News, presenting him as different individuals (Antifa insider, ex-Mexican mafia member) ([01:06]).

  • “Jesse has been bringing on a special guest. He wants you to think there are multiple guests and...but they might be the same guest.” — Jack ([01:11])

• Skepticism & Voice Analysis:
  The duo contrasts the guest segments, highlighting bad acting and suspiciously similar speech and demeanor ([03:22]).

  • Tim: “The accent was different but it sounded...like bad voice acting to me.” ([03:36])
  • Jack: “It didn’t sound great.” ([03:38])

• Comedic Dissection:
  With tongue-in-cheek humor, they lampoon Watters’ attempt at manufacturing credibility, mocking the “youth recruitment” narratives in the Antifa segments.

2. The Politics and Ethics of Media Fear-Mongering

• Jesse Watters on Political Violence:
  Jack and Tim dissect a clip where Watters suggests the goal of Trump-era immigration policies and ICE raids is to “scare” undocumented people out of the country using cruelty and deliberate fear ([05:46]–[06:36]).

  • Notable Quote: “...2 million illegals have seen these scare tactics...and they have left by themselves and that is actually working on Donald Trump’s immigration policy’s behalf.” — Jesse Watters (clip, [06:10])
  • Jack’s blunt reaction: “What a fucking piece of shit.” ([06:36])

• Double Standards and Cheerleading for Cruelty:
  The hosts highlight the hypocrisy of right-wing rhetoric—complaining about left-wing scare tactics while actively stoking fear among minority communities ([07:12]).

  • Jack: “Your job as a part of this...is to go fucking scare black and brown people.” ([07:34])

3. Empathy, Hatred, and Public Life

• Should We “Know Who Hates Us”?
  Jack and Tim debate whether it is healthier to know who in society holds genuinely hostile or hateful views—or whether the ignorance of earlier eras offered more peace ([10:25]–[12:48]).

  • Jack: “Don’t we want to know who hates us?...Shouldn’t we know who hates the idea of humanity and empathy in public all the time?” ([10:27])
  • Tim: “Back when I was growing up in the ’90s...we had no fucking idea what our neighbors thought about anything. And I gotta tell you...that’s healthy.” ([12:09])

• Where to Draw the Line:
  They distinguish between calling out public figures who propagate cruelty (like Watters or Stephen Miller), versus ostracizing ordinary neighbors with differing views ([11:36]–[11:54]).

  • Tim: “I’m for name calling of Stephen Miller...But I don’t think we need to treat, you know, the lady that lives next door [the same way].” ([11:40])

4. Memorable Moments and Humor

• Voice Acting Critique:
  They replay and mock the Fox guest's bizarre attempts at different identities, exaggerating the absurdity with jokes about Antifa dodgeball and Catholic school nuns as gangs ([03:03]–[04:54]).

• Contempt for Watters:
  The show unites in cathartic, hyperbolic condemnation of Jesse Watters, closing on a rare moment of shared sentiment:

  • Jack: “We fucking hate Jesse Watters.” ([13:37])
  • Tim: “We don’t like Jesse Watters.” ([13:41])

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Notable Quotes by Timestamp

• On Fox News and Fake Guests:
  “Jesse has been bringing on a special guest. He wants you to think that there are multiple guests and...but they might be the same guest...” — Jack ([01:11])

• On Questionable Testimony:
  “Do people say that about themselves? I was extremely violent. I was violent enough to be recruited by a gang.” — Tim ([04:18])

• On Political Cruelty:
  “Your job as a part of this...is to go fucking scare black and brown people.” — Jack ([07:34])

• On the Psyche of Fear:
  “We don’t know the difference in our brains between getting a text message and getting attacked by a wild animal.” — Jack ([09:34])

• On Awareness of Hostility:
  “Shouldn’t we know who hates the idea of humanity and empathy in public all the time?” — Jack ([10:27])

• Tongue-in-cheek closure:
  “We fucking hate Jesse Watters.” — Jack ([13:37])
  “That’s a truth I think we can live in.” — Tim ([13:43])

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Important Segments [Timestamps]

• [01:06] — Introduction of the Jesse Watters / Fox guest controversy
• [02:16] — Online speculation about Fox guests’ real identities
• [03:22] — Breakdown and critique of the “bad voice acting”
• [05:46] — Clip and analysis of Jesse Watters advocating fear as immigration policy
• [09:34] — Fear as a tool: the psychological cost
• [10:25–12:48] — Debate on knowing who in society 'hates' whom, and its effects
• [13:37] — Mutual contempt for Jesse Watters: summary and closing sentiment

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Tone and Style

Conversational, heavily laced with dark humor and profanities, the episode pulls no punches in criticizing Fox News’ media practices and figures like Jesse Watters. Jack and Tim volley between sarcastic banter, pointed analysis, and moments of genuine distress about the current political-media environment.

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This episode offers a sharp, irreverent, and insightful look at media manipulation, divisive politics, and the challenge of maintaining empathy in an era dominated by fear-mongering and cruelty.

Transcript

[A]

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[B]

Hi, I'm Jack Catcharola with the Bulwark and I will be joining y' all on weekend, Saturday, Sunday, sometimes during the week going forward, hopefully if Tim doesn't fire me. But I thought we would.

[C]

Watch out.

[B]

Watch out. We'd kick off this inaugural episode by talking about someone who we love to hate so dearly, and that is Jesse Waters over at what I think we can only call the Fox propaganda.

[C]

Before we get to Jesse, I do just want to say please thrilled to have you on the board Timothy board channel. And it is important to notice that note though that you will be ghettoized to the weekends. Sure, I know how you kind of threw in the week, but it happens. Some of us don't want to work on the weekends so it's important that you and you love our hates.

[B]

It is possible that I might stick around for other stuff, but we'll see. But Jesse Waters, who works for a news outlet that defends itself in court by saying it's entertainment and essentially propaganda for the president, which Jesse admitted the other day has gotten itself into some hot water because Jesse has been bringing on a special guest. He wants you to think that there are multiple guests and. But they might be the same guest because lately we've been checking in with antifa. Yeah. And so Jesse needs to throw to a former member of this dangerous organization of T. Rex costume wearing vigilantes, one battle after another. It really is great shout out to pta, but we saw a little bit of controversy that I want to get into both with an article kind of detailing this weird reappearing guest for Jesse and his really bad acting.

[C]

Now you're saying reappearing? Are you a facial recognition scientist? Have you used AI or talented?

[B]

You can be. You can be the judge because we'll see. Fox News's Jesse Waters has come under fire in recent days over a recent interview with a masked man who he claims to be in antifa whistleblower. With media observers and critics like us speculating that the guest also posed as an ex Mexican mafia member for a 2023 segment.

[C]

Wow.

[B]

Throwback. While online, speculation has gone into overdrive that the two men are the same guy. And many have even claimed the man who purportedly shot Osama bin Laden was the person behind the mask. It seems maybe it's unlikely but I think if we look at this clip.

[C]

We can tell you I've been watching this on social media go past and this is why we bring you in. Because I see these, these posts, I'm just like I gotta keep scrolling. I've got other things.

[B]

No care at all. But let's tune in with our guy. You know, mostly recruiting, working with youth, getting, you know, and just going out, spitting out the message. I saw that he had allegedly stated that one of his motives or reasons was to support Black Lives Matter. Okay, so that's all that we need to hear from that guy or guys.

[C]

Well, the working with youth is something that I want to sit on.

[B]

Working with the youth.

[C]

Let's say you do Tim and I do over the fypod. It's like you're in antifa. What were you doing? Mostly recruiting and working with youth.

[B]

With the youth.

[C]

Doing what with the youth? Exactly. Was there. Did they have like a program, like an after school, a kind of a big brother, little brother type thing?

[B]

They were playing dodgeball after. I do want to give a shout out to decoding Fox News who these clips together because of course that was from 2023. But the accents a little. The accents, the voices, the whatever. It was little.

[C]

The accent was different but it sounded.

[B]

Like bad voice acting to me.

[C]

It did.

[B]

It didn't sound great.

[C]

I couldn't tell. The other thing was like the Mexican, the allegedly Mexican gang member sounded more.

[B]

Non Mexican gang member than the antifa guy.

[C]

And also. But like why, why did he have a Mexican accent? I thought the point was that he'd been in jail for a long time and then the Mexican gang recruited him.

[B]

Do you think he had it? Can we play. We're going to play a little bit more of this. Let's to what the Mexican guy, the alleged, alleged Mexican guy sounded like.

[C]

OK. And we love as KFC Barstool told me, we love Mexicans.

[B]

Great people. 36 years have been behind bars, considered extremely violent. Violent enough to be recruited by the Mexican mafia prison gang. So he was recruited. So he's not. But he is.

[C]

Do people say that about themselves? I was extremely violent. I was violent enough to be recruited by a gang. It just, it's not. It just feels a little academic. To me, you know, for the former Mexican prison gangster, I haven't hung out.

[B]

Are you using that nice language?

[C]

Yeah, I haven't hung out with a ton of Mexican gangsters. That you know of. That I know of. Yeah, you know, I have a little rough and tumble period in high school, so I hung out with some people of ill repute. And they wouldn't have called themselves people.

[B]

Is that what the nuns were at the Catholic high school that you.

[C]

They would not have called themselves. They were violent.

[B]

They hit me with the ruler.

[C]

Yeah, they would just be talking a little more casually like, yeah, chill, nuns as a gang. So I don't, I don't know. I'm not buying it.

[B]

You're not buying it? I don't, I don't really believe Jesse Waters.

[C]

Has Jesse commented on the controversy?

[B]

Of course Jesse hasn't commented on the controversy. But what Jesse has commented on as it relates to Antifa and the Mexican gangs. These are a group of people who have been talking a lot about political violence recently while cheering on the political violence carried out by the, by the President of the United States. Whether it be striking what looks like fishermen boats in Venezuela off the coast, or, you know, of course, sending mass thugs after T. Rex costume wearing people. But Jesse had one clip that really caught my attention. For what the right clearly wants to accomplish out of these raids and their fear that I think is really important to like to talk about in the context of all the political violence. And let's take a look.

[D]

Tim And I do feel conflicted though, because, you know, Jessica, when people say, oh, you know, there's this guy and these ICE people are so crazy, I get mad because it's a lie. But then when she says these ICE people are abducting and kidnapping innocent hairdressers and sending them to dungeons to be tortured, I think, well, that's scaring a lot of illegals to go home themselves. So the next time Jessica brings up all these scare stories about all these illegals getting rounded up indiscriminately, innocent people being sent overseas, I'm just gonna say I agree because 2 million illegals have seen these scare tactics that Jessica likes to talk about and they have left by themselves and that is actually working on Donald Trump's immigration policy's behalf.

[B]

What a fucking piece of shit.

[C]

He is such a fucking cunt.

[B]

He's just like the swarming, like, oh, yeah, I guess we're just gonna talk about people being in the torture dungeon. I have heard non stop from the right that our rhetoric, it's having people scared. They won't go outside. You're suppressing free speech. What? Jesse Waters, who. I always have to keep in mind in these conversations around political violence, that Trump started his administration by laughing at, encouraging and enabling political violence. People who have reoffended after he pardoned them and now justice.

[C]

January sixers.

[B]

Yep. And Jesse's saying now, the goal of this administration and you, if you care about America and you want to get all the illegals out, is to go and make black and brown people scared, is that if you are an American who cares about our culture and getting the illegals out and scaring them, your job as a part of this, of this administration, whether you work for ice, whether you're just a good old Trump boy, is to go fucking scare black and brown people.

[C]

Yeah. No, he's a deeply bad person. And obviously you can't argue that you care about freedom or whatever if you are just not only. I was going to say diminishing, but if you're cheering on the idea of taking somebody's freedom away and sending them to a foreign gulag for no reason just because you want to be a supporter of the fascist state. I will say this. My only positive spin as I just sit here thinking about this, as I start to. As my blood pressure gets up and I start to kind of just think about how much I fucking hate Jesse Waters, is the good spin I have on it is it's nice that Fox has acknowledged that the administration lied and wrongly sent a hairdresser to a foreign gulag. That's nice. Fox has now said that. So that's. That's great. Like, we have that. Yeah, we have. We have that on the record that that was something that, like, even Fox News has acknowledged that that has happened, that the administration did that. I mean, you know, maybe people want that. I don't. I don't really think so, though. I think it's a pretty small percentage of the country that are actually depraved lunatics like Jesse Waters. Concerningly large. Like, more than I wish that it would be. But I think that there are a lot of Trump voters that are not, that are, like, for this stuff on the border going after the gang bangers. They're for it in theory, but I don't know if they're for, like, yeah, I want to send the guy that is. You know, think about the. Think about the old ladies that voted for Trump. You know, they're going. Every couple times a week, they're going for their blowout. You know, there's some gays, maybe some Latino gays that are working at those salons. Do you think that they want the Latino gays doing their blowouts to be sent to a foreign dungeon, torture dungeon, Terrified or terrified? I don't think so, really.

[B]

That's the point is to operate in, like, this condition of fear that we have to live in, which I think we already do that. Like, everyone's afraid, everyone's on edge to throw back to the.

[C]

People should be afraid. People in the in Latino community should be afraid. Look what they're doing in Chicago.

[B]

It's killing slowly. Like, the only good thing that I ever took away from my primates class. RIP Jane Goodall, Love you very much. Was that, you know, we don't know the difference in our brains between getting a text message and getting attacked by a wild animal. It's like we're having the same response of, like, fear.

[C]

I think I do.

[B]

Well, if you get a business email, maybe you've chilled out a little bit. But most people like, no, I'm very.

[C]

Scared of animals, though. You might have used a bad metaphor for me.

[B]

Well, I think a lot of people are scared of when they get business emails. I don't know if, like, you're enjoying this on a day off, but if your boss texted you, you probably wouldn't like it. But, like, this is how we feel. This is the condition of fear that we live in. On the Jesse thing, you talked about, like, Fox admitting it. You had a good conversation with Van Lathan the other day. And my takeaway of it was you talked about the truce that people have in certain settings. And I want to. I want to push back on the truce a little bit.

[C]

Okay.

[B]

I think it might.

[C]

No truce for you.

[B]

Well, my thing is, like, don't we want to know who hates us?

[C]

No, peace.

[B]

Not peace. But, like, shouldn't we know who hates us? Like, Jesse Waters hates us and Jesse Waters has stripped people of their humanity. And don't we want to know who hates the idea of humanity and empathy in public all the time?

[C]

Sure we do. I don't think that's really pushback. I think that sometimes I understand these are. People are scared and people are angry. And so these are very fraught times. And so when they hear somebody on the YouTube or on a podcast or whatever say, like, you know, maybe we should show a little empathy for the other side. They're like, no, I hate you. Like, wrong, wrong. I want to hate them. And it's like, I am for hating and deriding Jesse Waters. And I'm for smoking out people that are in our public life that want to advance cruelty and barbarism. And yeah, it is important to know who those folks are and who wants to scare people. I think that is. I'm not like aoc. I don't think we need to apologize for calling Stephen Miller a midget. A micro midget. I think that's fine. We can call him a cow, a micro midget. We can call him a human condom. We can call him Gollum, whatever you.

[B]

Want to call it. How the fabric of his suits like floats because it's disgusting.

[C]

I'm for name calling of Stephen Miller. I'm just saying I don't think that we need to treat, you know, the lady that lives next door.

[B]

What if the lady hates you the.

[C]

Same way we need to treat Stephen Miller and Jesse Wong.

[B]

Sure, different people.

[C]

Just because she voted for Donald Trump.

[B]

But do you want to know who hates you and who doesn't? Because I feel like we're.

[C]

No, actually, no, you don't.

[B]

So that's my difference is I want to know who hates me.

[C]

I think it's horribly. I think this is why our society is so fucked. So you're a youth. Let me take you back to the past.

[B]

Bestow upon.

[C]

Let me tell you a story about the old days. Back when I was growing up in the 90s, blissful period, we had no fucking idea what our neighbors thought about anything. And I gotta tell you, I had some neighbors, I'm sure in. I mean, well, obviously I had some neighbors in suburban Colorado that were thinking some bad thoughts since a couple of them shot up a school near me. But I'm sure there were some other neighbors that also had bad thoughts. Bad opinions were kind of mean that maybe wanted to maybe were racist in various things. But as a society, we were able to live together and root for the Broncos together because we didn't know what each other thought. And that's healthy, but doesn't. I don't need to know what everybody thinks all the time.

[B]

If we're doing acceleration, like, I don't.

[C]

Want to do accelerationism, I'm decelerating.

[B]

What if we want to. What if we want to confront it head on? If, like, if no one's going to talk about it and think about it, we're just going to suppress it. Isn't it like, I don't like the Jesse Waters agent, but at least we know he represents people.

[C]

Again, Jesse Waters is a different category. People in your community, you don't want to know what everybody thinks about everything, Jack. This is. This is why these things are horrible. They're breaking yalls brains. You don't want to know what all of the. All the kids at Columbia. What.

[B]

Whose screen time is higher?

[C]

Mine is way higher.

[B]

What was it this week or last week?

[C]

Probably like 11 hours a day for something. What is yours.

[B]

It's double. So sometimes I'm on both at once. If we're doing the. Yeah, feel free to.

[C]

My screen time is extremely unhealthy. But I. You know, it's the balance of having lived in a moment before you. You grew up. You grew up in the jungle. And that's bad. That's a different animal.

[B]

Well, I think if there's one thing that we can agree on. So. We fucking hate Jesse Waters.

[C]

We don't like Jesse Waters.

[B]

And that's a. That's a good place where we can all reside. And that's a truth I think we can live in and live our. Live our truth.

[C]

Yeah. Thanks for making space for that from.

[B]

Cam with the Bulwark. I guess only on the weekends because I've been relegated.

[C]

Only on the weekends.

[B]

I'm Jack Cottrella and he's Tim Miller. Thank you for joining me, man.