Fox News Host Jesse Watters Fumes Over DOGE Cuts—Lashes Out as the Losses Hit Too Close to Home

Johns Hopkins University announced staff layoffs as a result of massive funding cuts to federal aid programs – where Watters’s sister works

Fox News host Jesse Watters again bemoaned the DOGE cuts impacting him personally after the anchor had promoted the cuts.

On Thursday evening’s episode of Jesse Watters Primetime, the host, once again, praised President Donald Trump, billionaire Elon Musk and the newly-formed Department of Government Efficiency for making massive cuts to federal programs to curtail what they believe is “waste, fraud and abuse.”

But also lamented that it would be “a whole family thing” to deal with the fallout over the weekend.

The DOGE cuts have been targeted at federal funding of international aid programs. The trickle-down effect has left many colleges and universities without funding for research programs and as a result, some have announced layoffs – including Johns Hopkins University, where Watters’s sister works.

“I just saw some news that Trump took some grants away from Johns Hopkins where my sister works and now my mom is upset,” Watters told guest Ned Ryun, the founder of conservative nonprofit American Majority.

open image in gallery

Fox News host Jesse Watters said his sister’s place of employment had been impacted by the Trump administration’s cuts to foreign aid – the latest complaint of the cuts impacting his circle (Fox News / Jesse Watters Primetime)

“She’s texting me. It’s going to be a whole family thing, so we’re going to have to deal with that over the weekend,” Watters said.

Johns Hopkins, a leading university in scientific research, announced Thursday that it would eliminate more than 2,000 workers in the U.S. and abroad due to the Trump administration’s cuts to the international aid program.

Nearly half of the university’s revenue comes from federally-funded research – a significant portion from the U.S. Agency for International Development, the federal agency Trump and Musk have sought to get rid of.

“I hope they continue going down this path of not only yanking funding, I hope they go after their endowments,” Ryun told Watters. “Most of these colleges and universities are indoctrination centers of higher learning that are churning out leftists and I think we need to have a really strong look at going after their endowments as well.”

Elon Musk has informally led DOGE to make cuts to federal funding as Trump looks to shrink the federal budget (Getty Images)

While Watters often praises DOGE’s efforts, he has recently hinted at his dissatisfaction with some of the consequences.

Last month, Watters urged his colleagues to be “a little bit less callous” when speaking about people who have lost their jobs as a result of DOGE’s cuts, saying a friend, who is also a veteran, had lost their job at the Pentagon.

“I finally found one person I knew who got DOGE’d and hit me in the heart,” Watters said on The Five last month.

Now, Watters is adding his sister to the list of people he knows who are facing negative consequences as a result of the Trump administration’s cuts.