“Fox and Friends” co-host Brian Kilmeade apologized for suggesting homeless people with mental health issues should be killed.
“I wrongly said they should get lethal injections,” Kilmeade said Sunday on Fox News. “I apologize for that extremely callous remark. I’m 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.”
My apology pic.twitter.com/VeoLkpDyPq
— Brian Kilmeade (@kilmeade) September 14, 2025
Kilmeade made the shocking remarks during Wednesday’s segment of “Fox and Friends.” While Kilmeade and fellow co-hosts Ainsley Earhardt and Lawrence Jones were talking about the fatal stabbing of Ukrainian refugee Iryna Zarutska while she was riding public transportation in North Carolina, they argued the stabbing suspect, who reportedly has been diagnosed with schizophrenia, should have never been on the streets.
Jones said that, because homeless people and mentally ill people don’t want to receive help, they should be in jail. That’s when Kilmeade chimed in.
“Or, uh, involuntary lethal injection. Or something,” Kilmeade said. “Just kill ’em.”
Kilmeade’s remarks immediately garnered backlash, including from California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D), who wrote on social media, “Proverbs 21:13: Whoever closes his ear to the cry of the poor will himself call out and not be answered.” Newsom has been criticized for his own policies on homelessness in California.
Fox News did not offer any additional comment to HuffPost on the remarks.
Kilmeade has said questionable things in the past. Earlier this year, he said undocumented immigrants don’t deserve due process before being deported.
In 2022, Kilmeade questioned why Nina Jankowicz, a disinformation expert who was pregnant at the time, would lead the Disinformation Governance Board.
“Then, we find out who is in charge of it … Nina Jankowicz, who’s about eight-and-a-half-months pregnant, so I’m not sure how you get a job and then you just — you can’t do a job for three months,” Kilmeade said.
