Fox host sets off uproar with 'just kill them' comment about mentally ill homeless people

An offhand comment made by Fox News personality Brian Kilmeade about using “involuntary lethal injection” on mentally ill homeless people set off a wave of outrage on Saturday morning.

Lost in the Wednesday shuffle after conservative Charlie Kirk was shot and killed on Wednesday at a rally on a Utah college campus was a discussion on Fox & Friends where the hosts discussed media coverage of the killing of Ukrainian refugee Iryna Zarutska by a mentally ill man who had been arrested multiple times.

With Kilmeade and Ainsley Earhardt looking on, co-host Lawrence Jones complained, “We don't have to — we feel so compassionate because you see the mental health crisis happening. But it's not our job — we shouldn't have to live in fear while they figure out what is going on right there.”

After later adding, “They have given billions of dollars to mental health and the homeless population. A lot of them don't want to take the programs, a lot of them don't want to get the help that is necessary. You can't give them a choice. Either you take the resources that we're going to give you and — or you decide that you are going to be locked up in jail. That's the way it has to be now,” Kilmeade interjected, “Or involuntary lethal injection.”

With Jones agreeing, Kilmeade added, “Or something. Just kill them.”

Undisturbed by the suggestion, Earhardt chimed in with, “Yeah, Brian, why did it have to get to this point?”

After the video clip was posted on Bluesky on Saturday, commenters were astonished Kilmeade wasn’t pulled from the air as well as revolted by the suggestion

.“Words fail,” one responded while another disagreed and wrote, “If an on-air employee of any legitimate news organization had suggested killing homeless people they would be fired immediately.”

“Remember when the Right was up in arms about death camps?” Stephen O’Connor wrote. “Trump is already seeking to round up the homeless and now this guy wants to euthanise them. Perhaps he would like to use gas chambers? This is full-on Final Solution s—t.”

Bluebonnet contributed, “’Just kill them’? Geez. Us. But sure, both sides something something rhetoric something something.”

Zan Solomon predicted, “Let me guess the line from the other side. He was just joking and that's okay and we should have known he was joking and we should be okay with him joking about killing an entire demographic and we're why the US can't have nice things like free speech and I'm woke?”

Her comment led Marlene Gumlach to add, “Look at their faces. Do they look like they are joking. Even if that absurd observation were true is that something you joke about. The dude at MSNBC got fired for basically (in regards to Kirk) you reap what you sow. Disrespectful. This is disgusting.”

“America has a FoxNews problem. The sooner that is addressed, the better,” another Bluesky user suggested.

Michelle summed up the opinion of multiple commenters when she wrote, “WHAT THE ACTUAL F—K?!?!?”