Elected officials and activists staged a protest outside the Manhattan headquarters of Fox News on Thursday over a segment in which a correspondent conducted a series of mocking interviews of Asian-Americans in New York City’s Chinatown that critics said trafficked in stereotypes and veered into racism.

The correspondent, Jesse Watters, who has been accused of stalking and harassment for his ambush-style interviews on the street, expressed “regret” late Wednesday after provoking a storm of criticism for the segment that was broadcast Monday.

Mayor Bill de Blasio called the segment “vile.” And Councilman Peter Koo said in a statement: “Passing off this blatantly racist television segment as ‘gentle fun’ not only validates racist stereotypes, it encourages them. The entire segment smacks of willful ignorance by buying into the perpetual foreigner syndrome.

“How is it, that in New York City in 2016, this is still OK? Short answer: It’s not, and it is unfortunate that Fox News needs to be reminded of that.”

Fox broadcast the interviews as part of “Watters’ World,” a recurring segment on “The O’Reilly Factor,” the network’s top-rated show. The host, Bill O’Reilly, introduced the piece by saying it had been inspired by how frequently China was mentioned during the first presidential debate between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump.

But the nearly five-minute video was interspersed with references to martial arts and scenes of Watters getting a foot massage, playing with nunchucks and asking loaded questions that some residents appeared not to understand or couldn’t answer. Clips from well-known movies were sprinkled throughout the segment, including “The Karate Kid” and “Chinatown.”

Watters begins the piece with an instrumental version of the Carl Douglas song “Kung Fu Fighting” playing softly in the background. He asks two young women, “Am I supposed to bow to say hello?” He asks a street vendor if his wares were stolen: “I like these watches — are they hot?”

When he asks some passers-by their opinion of Clinton and Trump, the two men answer in accented English, and their answers are displayed in subtitles at the bottom of the screen.

“Trump has been beating up on China; how does that make you feel?” he asks an older woman. He peppers others with questions like “Is it the year of the dragon … rabbit?” “Is everything made in China now?” “Do they call Chinese food in China just food?”

And at one point, when another young woman says she really doesn’t want to vote for Trump so her choice was Clinton, he opines, “So China can keep ripping us off.”

The segment provoked an uproar among social media users, and Asian-American groups denounced it. The Asian-American Journalists Association said it was “outraged and shocked” and demanded an apology from the network.

“We should be far beyond tired, racist stereotypes and targeting an ethnic group for humiliation and objectification on the basis of their race,” the group said in a statement. “Sadly, Fox News proves it has a long way to go in reporting on communities of color in a respectful and fair manner.”

The influential blog Angry Asian Man, founded by Phil Yu, a Korean-American, described the segment in a post as “a new low, even for Fox News.”

“Jesse Watters went for a holy-crap-that’s-so-racist-man-on-the-street approach,” the post said.

State Sen. Daniel L. Squadron, whose district includes Chinatown, condemned the segment for “stereotyping, mockery and a thinly veiled disdain for immigrants.”

In addition to Koo, Comptroller Scott M. Stringer, U.S. Reps. Grace Meng and Nydia Velasquez, and state Assemblymen Ron Kim and Walter T. Mosley attended the rally Thursday, according to a statement from the New York state Black, Puerto Rican, Hispanic and Asian Legislative Caucus.

Watters, who responded to his critics Wednesday on Twitter, said he considered himself “a political humorist” and regretted that he had upset people. He said his interviews were meant to be taken as a lighthearted joke.

Watters and O’Reilly, however, appeared to anticipate that the interviews would cause a stir when the segment was broadcast Monday.

“I know we’re going to get letters,” O’Reilly said. “It’s inevitable.” The Fox host added that he was surprised, considering how “insulated” he believed the residents of Chinatown were, that many seemed to be aware of what was going on politically.

Watters said one man who had responded negatively to him was “one of many” who “hated” him. “They’re such a polite people — they won’t walk away or tell me to get out of here,” he said, laughing.

“They’re patient, they’re patient,” O’Reilly replied.

Renee Tajima-Peña, a professor of Asian-American studies at the University of California, Los Angeles, said the segment captured a long-standing and distinct feature of anti-Asian sentiment in the United States.

“They mock the Chinese and Chinese-Americans, yet the backhanded compliments — he said these people were so polite,” Tajima-Peña said. “That kind of duality of the perception of Asians has been there since time immemorial and the beginning of the republic.”

“We are either perpetual foreigners or we are the favored model minority,” she added. “We are a threat or we are docile.”

Watters has been at the center of controversy before. He became known for street interviews that sometimes seemed to serve little purpose save for bothering critics of Fox News or O’Reilly. In 2009, Amanda Terkel, then an editor at the liberal website Think Progress, wrote that she had been “accosted” by Watters while on vacation in a town two hours from where she lived.

She said she had been “followed, harassed and ambushed,” and referred to him as “O’Reilly’s top hit man.”

That incident reared its head years later, when Watters found himself in a brawl at the U.S. Institute of Peace during an after-party for the annual White House Correspondents Dinner.

The fight began when Ryan Grim, a reporter at The Huffington Post, where Terkel is currently employed, tried to film Watters with an iPhone. Fisticuffs soon followed.

“Ambush guy can’t take getting ambushed,” Grim told The Washington Post. “Maybe he should think about his life choices.”

© 2016 The New York Times Company