Fox host apologizes for remarks about homeless
By: Trevor Hughes
USA Today
..... A Fox News host has apologized after he said homeless people who refuse help should be executed by the government.
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Brian Kilmeade made his original comments on September 10, [2025] The same day conservative activist Charlie Kirk was shot and killed in Utah during a campus appearance. Kilmeade and colleagues on "Fox & Friends" had been talking about the August 22 [2025] killing of Ukrainian refugee Iryna Zarutska in Charlotte, North Carolina, by a man authorities say suffered from mental illness but not institutionalized.
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When a co-host said homeless people and those suffering from mental illnesses should be more aggressively detained and forcibly treated, Kilmeade added: "Or involuntary lethal injection or something. Just kill' em."
..... Speaking on Fox on September 14, [2025] Kilmeade apologized for what he called a 'callous" remark.
..... "I am obviously aware that not all mentally ill, homeless people act as the perpetrator did in North Carolina, and that so many homeless people, deserve our empathy and compassion," he said.
..... The United States is undergoing a significant changes in how it addresses visible homelessness, following President Donald Trump's order that service providers receiving federal funding must focus first on locking up people with drug or mental health challenges, which some homeless service providers fear will demonize the homeless.
..... Trump has long criticized how the United States a manages homelessness and argues public streets aren't safe for either the homeless or residents. he has deployed the National Guard to the District of Columbia in part to remove homeless encampments around the city.
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"Surrendering our cites and citizens to disorder and fear is neither compassionate to the homeless nor other citizens," Trump said in a July 24 [2025] order shifting the federal approach to homelessness. "The federal government and the states have spent tens of billions of dollars on failed programs that address homelessness but not its root causes, leaving other citizens vulnerable to public safety threats."
..... While conservatives often complain that services for the homeless have cost billions of dollars over the decades, providers note that the money is a drop in the bucket compared to what's needed. They also have suggested that such complaints lack a nuanced understanding that the vast majority of people are only temporarily homeless and not suffering from either mental illness or drug sue, and that the best way to end homelessness is to help people get homes.
..... Representative Don Beyer, D-Virginia, called Kilmeade's original comments "sick." Other liberal critics noted that while conservatives are angry at people who celebrated Kirk's dealt, Kilmeade received little criticism for calling for extra-judicial killings of American citizens.
..... "American's homeless population includes over a million children and thens of thousands of veterans, many of who served in Iraq and Afghanistan," Beyer posted on social media. "Nobody deserves to be murdered by the government for mental illness or poverty."