 Watches will not work with iPhone SE?

A friend of mine went to her local Apple store to see about getting an iPhone and an  Watch. She wanted to get an iPhone SE but the Apple representative told her that the iPhone SE can not be used with  watches. I went online and looked at both the iPhone SE and the  Watch specs. The watches seem to require iPhones with iOS 14 minimum and the iPhone SE comes with iOS 16. In addition, the iPhone SE comes with the Watch.ipa installed.

So does anyone here use an iPhone SE running iOS 16 with an  Watch (regular or SE) running WatchOS 9? I'm curious if the Apple representative was correct or just lying to force an upsell.