Fox News Channel host Brian Kilmeade apologized on Sunday for advocating for the execution of mentally ill homeless people in a discussion on the network last week, saying his remark was “extremely callous.”
Kilmeade’s initial comment came on a “Fox & Friends” episode Wednesday and began getting widespread circulation online over the weekend. Kilmeade, a host of the morning show, was talking with co-hosts Lawrence Jones and Ainsley Earhardt about the Aug. 22 stabbing murder of Iryna Zarutska on a light rail train in Charlotte, North Carolina.
A homeless and mentally ill man, Decarlos Brown Jr., was arrested for murder, and the case received extensive attention on Fox following the release of a security video of the stabbing.
Jones was talking on “Fox & Friends” on Wednesday about public money spent on trying to help homeless people and suggested that those who didn’t accept services offered to them should be jailed.
“Or involuntary lethal injection, or something,” Kilmeade said. “Just kill ‘em.”
Earhardt interjected, “Why did it have to get to this point?” Kilmeade replied, “I will say this, we’re not voting for the right people.”
Just to add, the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act repealed Carter’s Mental Health Systems Act - effectively defunding community based health organizations that would support those tossed out of institutions and onto the street. Reagan and Republicans more generally just didn’t give a shit what happened to these people as long as it didn’t cost them any money and that is largely why the homeless situation is where it is today.
It also should not be forgotten that shortly after this, Rush Limbaugh began a decades-long campaign against the homeless on his radio show, constantly demonizing them and attempting to paint homelessness as a choice made exclusively by addicts and the societally worthless.