Jesse Watters Compares Voting for Ken Paxton to Listening to Michael Jackson: 'You Have to Compartmentalize'
Texas voters will have the final verdict.
Oct. 8 2026, Published 3:45 p.m. ET
Jesse Watters told viewers on The Five that they have to compartmentalize and vote for Ken Paxton even if "the guy sucks," and he compared that choice to listening to Michael Jackson, RadarOnline.com has learned.
The exchange came Monday, October 5, after Jessica Tarlov cited a recent poll she described as hugely favorable to Democrats in states Republicans should not be losing.
Jesse Watters: 'Compartmentalize' and Vote for Ken Paxton
Watters urged viewers to vote for Paxton even though he 'sucks,' and compared him to Jackson.
Watters said President Trump's new message is to vote for the nominee anyway.
"I don't like Vivek Ramaswamy either. Ken Paxton, the guy sucks. But you've gotta vote for him," Watters said, paraphrasing the president. "Because you have to compartmentalize."
He said people do this all the time.
"Michael Jackson's peccadilloes. I ignore them because I love his music."
Michael Jackson's Allegations
Jackson's estate has maintained that he is innocent despite the shocking allegations.
Jackson denied allegations of child sexual abuse for years, and a California jury acquitted him in 2005 of charges that he molested a 13-year-old boy at Neverland Ranch.
Further accusations were published after he died in 2009, including in the 2019 documentary Leaving Neverland, whose subjects said Jackson abused them as children. Jackson's estate has disputed those accounts.
Tarlov referred to the allegations that came after his death, saying, "He's dead. He can't be convicted. But he would be."
Jesse Watters Also Mentions O.J. Simpson
Watters used the NFL's compartmentalization as another reason to vote for Paxton.
Watters then cited the 1995 criminal trial in which O.J. Simpson was acquitted of the murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman. A civil jury later found him liable for the deaths and ordered him to pay $33.5million.
The Fox News host also said NFL owners sign players with serious personal conduct problems because those players win games. He is applying the same thought process to Paxton.
Ken Paxton-James Talarico Senate Race
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James Talarico is giving Paxton a run for his money in Texas.
Paxton, the Texas attorney general, is the Republican nominee against Democratic state Rep. James Talarico.
A Fox News survey of 881 likely voters, conducted September 24-28, found Talarico leading 51 percent to 49 percent, within a margin of sampling error of 3 percentage points.
Over the past week, Axios, Politico and The New York Times have published three recordings from a September 24 fundraiser in Washington.
In those recordings, Paxton said Trump's midterm convention in Dallas on September 9 and 10 "dropped our numbers," that he had never felt less control over a campaign because "it's all coming from D.C.," and that the Iran war and diesel above $6 a gallon are "by far our biggest problem."
