Fox Host Who Said Homeless Should Be Killed Has Apologized

Brian Kilmeade's remarks sparked a backlash, but he has not been fired
Posted Sep 14, 2025 2:35 PM CDT
Fox Host Who Said Homeless Should Be Killed Has Apologized
Brian Kilmeade attends the 79th annual Alfred E. Smith Memorial Foundation Dinner last October in New York.   (AP Photo/Ted Shaffrey, File)

Fox News host Brian Kilmeade has apologized after suggesting on the air that homeless people who refuse assistance should be executed by the government. The remark came during Wednesday's Fox & Friends, as the hosts discussed the killing of Ukrainian refugee Iryna Zarutska in Charlotte, North Carolina, in which the suspect is reported to be mentally ill and unhoused. When a co-host advocated for more aggressive detention and treatment of mentally ill homeless individuals, USA Today reports, Kilmeade added, "Or involuntary injection or something. Just kill 'em."

"I apologize for that extremely callous remark," Kilmeade said Sunday on Fox, per the Los Angeles Times. "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." Online criticism of Kilmeade's statements said they evoked the extermination of mentally ill and disabled people carried out Adolf Hitler's Germany in 1939. The euthanasia campaign took the lives of 250,000 people before the Holocaust began. Fox has not fired Kilmeade, per the Guardian.

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