Fox News host Brian Kilmeade suggested using "involuntary lethal injection" to kill homeless people with mental illness during a September 10, 2025 segment of "Fox & Friends"[^1]. The comments came during a discussion about the murder of Ukrainian refugee Iryna Zarutska by a homeless person with schizophrenia in North Carolina[^2].

After co-host Lawrence Jones argued that homeless people should be forced to accept help or face jail time, Kilmeade interjected: "Or involuntary lethal injection... or something. Just kill 'em"[^3]. His co-hosts briefly acknowledged the comment before continuing their discussion[^4].

The remarks sparked widespread condemnation. Rep. Don Beyer of Virginia tweeted: "America's homeless population includes over a million children and tens of thousands of veterans, many of whom served in Iraq or Afghanistan. Nobody deserves to be murdered by the government for mental illness or poverty"[^1].

California Governor Gavin Newsom responded by quoting Proverbs 21:13: "Whoever closes his ear to the cry of the poor will himself call out and not be answered"[^3].

[^1]: The Independent - Fox News' host Brian Kilmeade says 'just kill 'em' about mentally ill homeless people

[^2]: Rolling Stone - Fox Host Says to 'Just Kill 'Em' While Discussing Homeless People Who Decline Help

[^3]: HuffPost - 'Just Kill 'Em': Fox Host Makes Shocking Comment On Homeless People

[^4]: Media Matters - Fox News host on mentally ill people who commit crimes: "Just kill them"

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[–] 37 points 1 year ago (1 child)

If I said that here, I would be banned.

If I said Charlie Kirk expressed hate, I would lose my job at MSNBC.

If I said Israel is an apartheid state engaged in genocide, the Feds would try to deport me.

If I said Obama was born in Kenya, I would be engaging.

If I said Nancy Pelosi's husband was having gay sex before his partner attacked him with a hammer, I would be respected.

If I said dead schoolchildren are just the price we pay to live in a free society, I would be celebrated.

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  • [–] 10 points 1 year ago

    The more time passes, the less I want to be part -at all, no matter what level- of human society.

    I'd flee but there really aren't any places left to go for us. I pine for the past, when it must've been comparatively trivial to vanish and start over elsewhere.

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  • [–] 17 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    Just openly advocating for eugenics now, on mainstream television.

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  • [–] 17 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    Will he be fired? Will he be unemployable?

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  • [–] 10 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    Forced to get help where? It's not like mental health resources were available before. Now with Medicaid cuts, I'm sure those mental hospitals are just lining up for the opportunity to treat patients.

    Fox viewers will just write this off as "he doesn't want them killed, he just thinks they should get help" and just assume there are 800,000 free beds, fully staffed and ready to help these people.

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  • [–] 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

    Fine to say on tv. Say something negative about fascist Kirk and you get fired.

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  • Newsom said what? I didn't hear anything. I live in California, maybe he's not calling out hard enough?

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  • Hate begets hate

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  • 46 comments in c/worldnews@lemmy.ml view that post
    [–] 97 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    Time to read up on Aktion T4, the Nazi campaign to mass murder people with disabilities and mental illness. During Aktion T4, the Nazis developed the techniques later used in concentration camps.

    Kilmeade's comment is a Nazi comment.

    Also, I don't know Don Beyer and maybe the tweet is meant in good faith, but arguing "we shouldn't kill the homeless because some of them are children or veterans" is highly problematic, too.

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  • [–] 25 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    Unfortunately some people have sympathy so selective that unless you can tug on very specific heartstrings, they will never give a damn about other people.

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  • [–] 12 points 1 year ago

    They are cynically playing the sheep, they have no heartstrings.

    And the sheep are led into an alternate reality where the moral thing is to follow these cynical influencers.

    It did not happen overnight, 30 years of fox working on previous propaganda has step by step brought their sheep to support fascism.

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  • [–] 68 points 1 year ago

    So this guy was sacked, right?
    Just like the MSNBC dude who expressed schadenfraude OFF THE AIR over Kirk's murder, right?

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  • [–] [S] 60 points 1 year ago
    [–] 60 points 1 year ago* (5 children)

    Fox & Friends co-host Brian Kilmeade endorsed euthanizing unhoused people suffering from mental health issues who decline getting help.

    Why do journalists do this sort of thing where a guy will literally say that we should murder homeless people and then they try to dress down their language to the point of dishonesty? Euthanasia is when you help something die that is in horrible unyielding pain. Not when you kill something because you don’t know how to take care of it.

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  • [–] 9 points 1 year ago

    News orgs, and frankly many public institutions, seem to be lliability averse to a fault. My guess is journalists have generally been instructed to use passive language to avoid libel lawsuits due to the expense of settlement or counsel fees.

    Passive language has become so common in journalism these days, and the far right terrorist cohort realizes the vocal minority bad faith pearl clutching schtick works well enough that they continue to threaten litigation against objective truth regularly. It's Trump's MO, and I assume it works because those being sued are terrified his base will be out for blood if he doesn't get his way.

    The more the news orgs settle and normalize this shit, the more inertia there is to get back to reality. It's maddening, tbh.

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  • [–] 43 points 1 year ago (2 children)
  • [–] 41 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    The Conservative Propaganda Machine is now openly calling for a systematic, government program to murder an entire large demographic group that makes them uncomfortable.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago*

    And in response to one of their own killing Kirk, the administration is about to embark on a campaign to cancel, jail, or deport all liberal, progressive, and leftist organizations like the ACLU - because they all support violence against conservatives, a bald-faced lie.

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  • [–] 33 points 1 year ago

    All people who were in the room and didn't voice a protest should never be hired in media again.

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  • [–] 32 points 1 year ago

    Reminder this guy 16 years ago used overt white supremacist language on Fox and Friends and still kept his job.

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  • [–] 31 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    Remember the famous speech by Jesus: Involuntary lethal injection is A-Ok if it's for homeless people, but never involuntary inject a racist-sexist-hateful right wing figure with a bullet, that's not cool.

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  • [–] 28 points 1 year ago

    But they get upset when we call them Nazis.

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  • [–] 23 points 1 year ago

    Which is fine because he wasn't drawing attention to the known facts that Charlie Kirk was a divisive fascist and the president is sitting on evidence that he, the president, is a pedophile.

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  • [–] 19 points 1 year ago

    Step 1 of Nazi mass murder: ✓

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  • [–] 19 points 1 year ago

    If anyone can call for murder of anyone simply for being inconvenient, how long until people call for the murder of people like Brian Kilmeade?
    Do the Brians seriously not see that coming?
    Do those fucktards really think their opponents will forever try to stay on the moral high ground?
    The future may hold some surprises for them, but not the kind of surprise they will like.

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  • [–] 14 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    Odd, I kinda feel the same way about Brian Kilmeades.

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  • [–] 12 points 1 year ago

    "We support our troops."

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  • [–] 12 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    Just remember, if you're working class you're never more than three bad months away from homelessness

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  • [–] 11 points 1 year ago

    This is A) Horrifying and B) Literal stochastic terrorism.

    Any left leaning folk who aren’t familiar with firearms should start practicing now, the Nazis are drumming up a fight whether we want it or not

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  • [–] 19 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    California Governor Gavin Newsom responded by quoting Proverbs 21:13: “Whoever closes his ear to the cry of the poor will himself call out and not be answered”

    Holy shit that is gruesome even for Gruesome Newsom

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  • [–] 9 points 1 year ago

    That is literally, terrorism!

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  • [–] 8 points 1 year ago (1 child)
  • [–] 7 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

    I knew this was a shit timeline, but not "Street Trash IRL" bad.

    Edit: Street Trash is a movie where a mysterious liquor starts "dissolving" the homeless when they drink it.

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  • [–] 6 points 1 year ago

    May he face what he condemns others to.

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  • [–] 5 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    that sounds like a very mentally deranged position. no, it is a mentally unwell position, one which requires therapy and mental health treatment to address. I believe and a thing i like to call radical empathy. Treat others how they want to be treated? No. That's bullshit. Treat people how they believe in treating others. Give the other boot a try. As such, applying reference 3 from your source material to its speaker would be both a kindness to its speaker, as he views it as kindness, and a kindness to society, as it removes him all the fuck ways away from us. Seems like his position or his life is due for a change.

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  • [–] 5 points 1 year ago

    one which requires therapy and mental health treatment to address.

    Not everybody is capable of developing empathy though, it also sounds sociopathic. The problem isn't only the one guy saying something crazy, it is also his environment not intervening.

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  • [–] 3 points 1 year ago

    Scumfuck wants a white world around him.

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  • [+] 7 points 1 year ago (1 child)
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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago

    Themselves included?

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