TJ Walker (YouTube) discusses Fox News host Brian Kilmeade’s on-air remark advocating lethal injection for a homeless person with mental illness, Kilmeade’s subsequent apology, and the media backlash. Walker evaluates Kilmeade’s apology as sincere, predicts he will not face job repercussions, and situates the incident within broader claims about double standards in media firings and the careers of commentators.
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Fox host apologizes after callous on air remark Fox News host Brian Kilmeade sparked outrage after suggesting, quote, involuntary lethal injection for homeless people with mental illness. On Fox and Friends, he bluntly said, just kill him. Days later, Killmeade apologized, saying, quote, I wrongfully said they should get lethal injections. I apologize for that extremely callous remark. He added, I am obviously aware that not all mentally ill host homeless people act as the perpetrator did in North Carolina and that so many homeless people deserve our empathy and compassion. The backlash highlights how one offhand remark can snowball in today's media environment. Fox has not publicly commented, but pressure on the network continues. Okay, so what's the real message here? Brian Kilmeade said you should just kill him. Talking about homeless people, inject them lethally. Kill them. But he then apologized and he did a pretty good apology. My prediction, he's not going to suffer any repercussions at Fox News, nor should he, given the fact that he owned up to making mistake. He admitted he was callous, he admitted it was wrong for him to say, and he apologized. That is what you want when someone calls for death. You don't necessarily have to end every career. Let's dig a little deeper here. I do think context is important. We are living in a time now when commentators, I would say all across the spectrum, but it's really only one part of the spectrum, are losing their jobs. Not for calling for the killing people. We're seeing commentators losing their jobs because they say, here's a guy over here who was killed. I appall his killing. I am appalled by anyone who would do that. We shouldn't have any violence. But now let's look at the career of this guy and what he said and all the messages of hate he spread. And before we canonize the guy, those people are having their careers ruined. Those people are being canceled. And yet not Brian. Now, I'm not asking for Brian Kilmeade to be fired. Now, full disclosure, Brian and I are not friends, but I've met him numerous times when I was on the set of Fox News Channel. And yes, I'm a sensible centrist and I've appeared on Fox hundreds of times, at MSNBC at least 100 times, and CNN and Bloomberg, you name it. I've done communications analysis on these networks and Brian always struck me as someone is not particularly ideological when you see him portrayed on Saturday Night Live, they always portray him as sort of a dim bulb and sort of an ignorant moron. I don't think he's an ignorant moron. I don't think he's a raging intellectual, but I don't think he's a moron. And he certainly has a long and successful and wildly lucrative career. He's fabulously rich. I'm not saying that is the measure of someone's career or you deserve a pass for that. But he's also held the same job since 1998, so he's going into nearly 30 years in the same job. So he has a tremendous work ethic. And you've got to get up pretty early in the morning to do the morning show. Plus, he's hosting all sorts of radio shows and podcasts and authoring or at least co authoring books that reach the best seller status. And he's not someone I see as routinely spewing hate, although this idea. He did literally say kill him. I dare say if any host on another network of a different ideological position said kill him and referred not to homeless but to a political group more in favor by those at the channel where Mr. Kilmeade works, that person would be fired within about five minutes before the next commercial break. They would have been escorted out of the building. So, yeah, it's a double standard. It's unfair. I'm not calling for Brian to lose his job, nor do I think he will, because it's one thing you could say about Fox is they're very, very loyal. Until you get to the point where you're really causing hundreds of millions of dollars of damage, like a Bill O'Reilly or a Tucker Carlson, then they're very loyal and they stand by you, which is one reason why their audience is very loyal to them. As.
