Fox News host alludes to baseless conspiracy theory and calls George Floyd death 'a premeditated hit' that 'was executed extremely poorly'

• Live on air Wednesday, Fox News opinion host Jesse Watters floated a baseless conspiracy theory floating around QAnon forums on the death of George Floyd.
• Watters, co-host of "The Five," speculated through a series of items on the co-working relationship between former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin and Floyd, alluding to a potential investigation into the nightclub where they reportedly overlapped — though they may not have known each other.
• "Yes, maybe [Chauvin] is some insane racist that just wanted to kill an innocent black man — it's possible," Watters said. "It's just not likely, in my opinion."
• "If you have a guy kneeing a guy in the neck like that, over a counterfeit $20, and you have the rest of the crew standing around watching, it looks like a premeditated hit."
• "So there's a lot of things at play, and you could find at the end of the day, this is not racially motivated at all. This was some sort of criminal thing that went haywire, and this was a hit that was executed extremely poorly."

In a speculative tangent Wednesday evening, Fox News opinion host Jesse Watters floated a conspiracy theory that George Floyd's death was "not racially motivated at all," and instead "some sort of criminal thing that went haywire" resulting in "a hit that was executed extremely poorly."

Watters, who co-hosts "The Five" on weekdays in addition to his own weekend show, drew from the co-working relationship between Floyd and former Minneapolis police officer at the same nightclub.

They overlapped at El Nuevo Rodeo Club in 2019. With Chauvin working outside and Floyd inside, the club's owner told Insider the two may not have known each other.

Extrapolating from the chance they did know each other, Watters alluded to a conspiracy theory floating around QAnon circles.

—Jesse Watters (@JesseBWatters) June 3, 2020

"If you have a guy kneeing a guy in the neck like that, over a counterfeit $20, and you have the rest of the crew standing around watching, it looks like a premeditated hit," Watters said, pointing to a possible investigation into the club without citing any sourcing.

"So there's a lot of things at play, and you could find at the end of the day, this is not racially motivated at all," he continued. "This was some sort of criminal thing that went haywire, and this was a hit that was executed extremely poorly.

"And they thought they were gonna get away with it, while the rest of the country runs wild, and tries to capitalize on the energy from coming out of a lockdown, and knowing that Biden's not gonna ramp up that kind of energy. They've got to ride this energy out until November."

The connections Watters was drawing were shared by QAnon conspiracy theorists on social media.

—RNQTEE75 (@Jill_Vest) June 3, 2020

Watters, who rose the ranks at Fox News from being Bill O'Reilly's protege, did not reference the group — which was described in an FBI report as a potential domestic terrorism threat — but his name began generating buzz in the community after making the comments.

One user supposed Watters "cruises the boards," meaning he browses the forums where directives from the anonymous "Q" are parsed through.

A Fox News spokesperson did not immediately return a request for comment.

Systemic racism has been the central rallying cry of the nationwide protests after video of Floyd's killing went viral, with former President Barack Obama addressing the topic in a video address in the middle of "The Five" broadcast.

Watters weighed in on that too, saying it was "quite jarring."

—Acyn Torabi (@Acyn) June 3, 2020

"It was quite jarring to hear the black president talk about how racist the country is — that elected him twice," Watters said. "And he was there for the last eight years, and this country is still racist. It's systematically racist — not sure what that means."