“Fox & Friends” co-host Brian Kilmeade apologized Sunday for remarks he made last week that suggested using involuntary lethal injections to get mentally ill homeless people off the streets.
Kilmeade’s comments came during a discussion last Wednesday on “Fox & Friends” about the Aug. 22 stabbing death of a 23-year-old Ukrainian refugee, Iryna Zarutska, on a light rail train in Charlotte, N.C.
Zarutska’s suspected killer, DeCarlos Brown Jr., is a homeless man with a long criminal record and is a paranoid schizophrenic, according to his family.
The attack on Zarutska was captured on security cameras and circulated widely online. The incident has sparked a national debate on public safety policy and criminal sentencing.
The topic led “Fox & Friends” co-host Laurence Jones to say that billions of dollars have been spent on programs to care for the homeless and mentally ill but many of those afflicted resist help.
“A lot of them don’t want to take the programs,” Jones said. “A lot of them don’t want to get the help that is necessary. You can’t give them the choice. Either you take the resources that we’re going to give you, or you decide that you’ve got to be locked up in jail.”
Kilmeade added: “Or involuntary lethal injection or something — just kill ‘em.”
A clip of Kilmeade’s remarks started to circulate widely on X on Saturday.
“I apologize for that extremely callous remark,” Kilmeade said during Sunday’s edition of the morning program. “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.”
Many online commentators pointed out that Kilmeade’s comments evoked the extermination of mentally ill and disabled people that was authorized by Adolf Hitler in 1939. The German chancellor’s euthanasia program killed more than 250,000 people ahead of the Holocaust.
For now, Kilmeade has avoided the fate of political analyst Matthew Dowd, who lost his contributor role at MSNBC after commenting on the Wednesday shooting death of right-wing political activist Charlie Kirk.
Dowd told MSNBC anchor Katy Tur that “hateful thoughts lead to hateful words, which then lead to hateful actions.”
Dowd, once a political strategist for President George W. Bush, described Kirk as a divisive figure “who is constantly sort of pushing this sort of hate speech or sort of aimed at certain groups.”
The angry reaction on social media was immediate after Dowd’s comments suggested that Kirk’s history of incendiary remarks led to the shooting.
Rebecca Kutler, president of MSNBC, issued an apology and cut ties with Dowd.
Dowd also apologized in a post on BlueSky. “I in no way intended to blame Kirk for this horrendous attack,” he said.
The top executives at MSNBC parent Comcast sent a company-wide memo Friday citing Dowd’s firing and told employees “we need to do better.”
In a room full of students at Cal State L.A. last week, a young man told Los Angeles City Council candidate Ysabel Jurado that he supports the idea of abolishing the police and wanted to know where she stood on the issue.
Jurado’s reply, which included the phrase “F— the police, that’s how I see ‘em,” drew sharp criticism this week from parts of the Eastside, where she is seeking to unseat Councilmember Kevin de León.
On Wednesday, De León confirmed that Martin Perez, one of his staffers, is the Cal State L.A. student who posed the question.
De León declined to say whether Perez, who handles constituent services in his office, made the recording of Jurado’s remarks, which first appeared Monday on the website of the Westside Current. But he commended his aide, saying Jurado has been sidestepping questions about police abolition.
“He got the answer that we’ve been asking [during] five consecutive debates as to why she wants to abolish the police,” he said. “And she confirmed it with a very vulgar and crude “F—the police.”
Jurado’s remarks at the Cal State L.A. meet-and-greet have delivered an unexpected jolt to the campaign for the 14th District, which takes in all or part of downtown, Boyle Heights, El Sereno and Eagle Rock. De León has been struggling to emerge from a two-year-old scandal over a different recording — one that featured crude and racist remarks — and is facing a fierce opponent in Jurado, a tenant rights attorney who has never run for office before.
Councilmember Monica Rodriguez labeled Jurado’s use of the phrase immature, while Councilmember Bob Blumenfield called it “incredibly offensive.” The Los Angeles Police Protective League, which endorsed De León and represents about 8,800 officers, is now airing 30-second attack ads criticizing Jurado.
“Her plan for public safety starts with an F-bomb,” the ad states.
In recent weeks, Jurado has pushed back on assertions that she intends to defund the police, while also arguing that too much money is being spent on the LAPD, putting the city on the brink of a financial crisis.
On Monday, she downplayed her use of “F— the police,” saying it was “just a lyric” from a rap song. Although she didn’t say which song, her wording parallels parts of N.W.A’s “F— Tha Police” and Kanye West’s “All Falls Down.”
Jurado declined to comment about Perez on Wednesday. But she described the police union ad as “just noise.”
“Our community is focused on how they’re going to put food on the table and pay their rent on time — not song lyrics,” she said in a statement. “That’s why we’re more determined than ever to lift up their needs and be their champion in City Hall. This campaign is about delivering results, not distractions.”
Perez declined an interview request from The Times. In the recording of the meet-and-greet, he began his question by noting that he lives in the council district and is “a punk from East L.A.”
More than a dozen people attended the event, and several recorded different questions and answers, said Elliot Avila, a Cal State L.A. student who took part in the discussion. Nevertheless, Avila said he is convinced that Perez made the recording of Jurado’s remarks.
“He’s the one who claims to be a police abolitionist, and he’s clearly working for Kevin de León,” he said. “The only person with the motive to do that would be him.”
Avila, who plans to vote for Jurado, said her full response to the abolition question was actually “centrist.” After using the phrase “F— the police,” Jurado pointed out that some of her constituents want more police and said the LAPD needs to focus on violent crime.
“She was meeting [Perez] where he was at, but then walking back to a more centrist, pragmatic position,” Avila said. “I would have liked for her to go much harder against the police.”
Perez has been an aide to De León for about a year and half, according to his LinkedIn profile. He founded and managed a clothing company in the “vibrant East L.A. punk scene” while also working as a security guard, the profile says.
Perez has been volunteering for De León’s reelection campaign, door-knocking, phone banking and creating “art for tote bags to be used by other staffers,” his profile states.
Jurado identified herself as an abolitionist — someone who supports the “abolition of police and the “prison industrial complex” — in a questionnaire she submitted to the Democratic Socialists of America-Los Angeles.
De León has assailed that stance, saying it would leave neighborhoods from downtown to Boyle Heights vulnerable to violent crime. Earlier this week, he described Jurado’s use of the F-bomb as “irresponsible,” saying wealthy neighborhoods will always have the ability to hire security personnel.
“Poor neighborhoods, low-income neighborhoods, neighborhoods that struggle every single day to make ends meet, they deserve public safety as well,” he told KTLA.
Jurado has pushed back on the idea that she plans to defund the LAPD, saying she wants officers to focus on gangs, drugs and violent crime.
On the campaign trail, she has also argued that the city’s approach to public safety “isn’t working,” saying that more money should be devoted to street lighting, sidewalk repairs and youth programs.
With just 23 days left until election day and voters already casting ballots, former President Trump rallied supporters in the California desert while railing against the state’s Democratic leadership, notably his presidential rival, Vice President Kamala Harris.
Trump blasted California as having “the highest inflation, the highest taxes, the highest gas prices, the highest cost of living, the most regulations, the most expensive utilities, the most homelessness, the most crime, the most decay and the most illegal aliens.”
“Other than that, you’re doing quite well, actually,” Trump said. “We’re not going to let Kamala Harris do to America what she did to California.”
Trump painted California as a lawless, dystopian state, and at times correctly touched on the economic struggles faced by many residents. But his comments also were peppered with distortions and falsehoods, including his claim that California has brownouts and blackouts “every day,” presumably because of power shortages.
The former president spoke shortly after 5 p.m. on a polo field at Calhoun Ranch, just outside the city of Coachella, but supporters lined up hours earlier in the scorching desert heat to attend.
Trump stands before supporters at the rally at Calhoun Ranch.
(Wally Skalij / Los Angeles Times)
As they spent hours in temperatures that reached 100 degrees, they sought shade in the few spots they could, and large tanks of ice quickly emptied as attendees grabbed fistfuls of cubes to put under their hats or fill water bottles. Multiple medical emergencies occurred during the rally.
“Welcome to Trumpchella!” said state GOP Chairwoman Jessica Millan Patterson, one of the warm-up speakers for Trump.
Trump’s visit to the home state of Harris offers him another chance to bash the liberal policies of the Bay Area native as well as California itself — one of his favorite refrains on the campaign trail. Harris served as San Francisco’s district attorney before she was elected as California’s attorney general and to the U.S. Senate.
And the Coachella Valley, home to a thriving agricultural industry and a large population of Latino farmworkers, provides a backdrop for Trump to highlight the region’s water and agricultural needs, as well as immigration. Latinos constitute almost 98% of Coachella, according to U.S. Census Bureau data.
Deriding California as a “sanctuary state” for immigrants as he spoke to thousands of supporters, Trump said, “The people of California are not going to take it any longer.”
He repeatedly tied immigrants — many of whom, he said, come from “dungeons of the Third World” — to criminal activity, though studies show that immigrants commit crimes at lower levels than U.S.-born residents. He blasted Harris, whom President Biden tasked with addressing the root causes of immigration from three nations in Central America, as a failed “border czar.”
“Kamala Harris got you into this mess and only Trump will get you out of it,” he said.
Trump criticized California as being horribly mismanaged, primarily blaming Harris and Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom, especially when it comes to crime, the high cost of living and water policy. The former president also threatened to cut off federal disaster aid for the state’s devastating wildfires if California’s leaders don’t make more water available to farmers and homeowners.
“We’re going to take care of your water situation, force it down his throat, and we’ll say: Gavin, if you don’t do it, we’re not giving any of that fire money that we send you all the time for all the fire, forest fires that you have,” Trump said.
Donning his red “Make America Great Again” hat to guard against the beating desert sun, Trump encouraged the crowd to vote in large numbers, to make the election “too big to rig.” He has repeatedly denied losing the 2020 election. “They are good at one thing. Which one thing?” he asked the crowd. “Cheating!” the crowd roared back.
Trump also turned his ire against Rep. Adam B. Schiff (D-Burbank), the front-runner in California’s U.S. Senate race who led a successful House impeachment of Trump, before the Senate acquitted him. Trump called him “one of the least attractive human beings” and insulted the size of Schiff’s neck and head.
Rep. Raul Ruiz (D-Indio) said that the “Coachella Valley is known for being a presidential playground,” noting that Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) campaigned in the valley, former President Obama came to golf, and Presidents Ford and Eisenhower retired in the region. Still, he called Trump’s decision to visit Coachella — in one of the bluest states in the country — “baffling.”
Trump addresses the crowd Saturday.
(Wally Skalij / Los Angeles Times)
“We are familiar with having presidents come and leave a mark here, and we respect and love them. … But ex-President Trump is different,” Ruiz said on a call from Coachella Valley, where he was spending the day talking to reporters. “There doesn’t seem to be a lot of respect for the demographics that live here — not just in his vile rhetoric but also in his policies.”
The rally venue is just outside the 41st Congressional District, where Democrat Will Rollins, a former federal prosecutor, is challenging Republican Rep. Ken Calvert, who spoke at the rally. The race will be crucial in determining which party wins control of the House.
“Welcome Trump,” Calvert told the rally crowd. “Show him some sanity still exists in California, and it’s right here in Riverside County.”
Other speakers included Republican Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida, an ardent Trump ally, and Dennis Quaid, the actor who recently portrayed President Reagan in his namesake movie.
Mary and Pete Venegas drove more than an hour from their Hemet home to see Trump, for whom they both plan to vote for the first time in November.
Mary Venegas, a former Democrat who sat out the 2020 election because she was unenthusiastic about Biden, said Trump deserves “a second chance.” Wearing a red Trump T-shirt, she said she is now a registered Republican.
“He made me do it,” she said, laughing, as she poked her husband, who runs a construction and landscaping business and said he supports Trump because of his business acumen.
The visit marks Trump’s second trip to the Golden State in a month, after making a stop to talk to reporters at his Rancho Palos Verdes golf course in September sandwiched between two high-dollar fundraisers in Beverly Hills and the Bay Area.
California GOP strategists granted anonymity to discuss the former president’s motivation said it included the notion that he wanted to increase his share of the popular vote — and despite California’s Democratic tilt, it is home to more than 5 million registered Republicans.
Trump has announced that he will hold an Oct. 27 rally at Madison Square Garden in New York, another deeply Democratic state.
At Saturday’s rally, mentions of Harris and Newsom from Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco, who was a delegate at the Republican National Committee, drew boos from the audience.
“The downfall of public safety in California began over a decade ago with Gavin Newsom’s policies, and ideas under the watch of Atty. Gen. Kamala Harris,” Bianco said, mentioning Proposition 47, a state ballot initiative that reduced certain thefts and crimes to misdemeanors.
Though Proposition 47 was put in place under Harris’ watch, she declined to wade into the political debate as attorney general. California voters will decide whether to roll back some of the 2014 measure when voting on Proposition 36 next month.
Trump held a rally in Aurora, Colo., on Friday — a state he lost by more than 13 points in 2020. He has falsely claimed that Aurora had been taken over by Venezuelan gang members. He also paid a visit Friday night to Nevada.
Trump acknowledges supporters’ cheers.
(Wally Skalij / Los Angeles Times)
During Saturday’s rally, Trump mentioned a new immigration policy, dubbed “Operation Aurora,” that he announced during Friday’s visit to expedite deportation of immigrant gang members. He also called for the death penalty for any immigrant who kills an American citizen or law enforcement officer, a proposal that drew chants of “USA!” from the audience.
On Thursday, while speaking at the Detroit Economic Club, he insulted the city and warned that the situation in Detroit foreshadowed what would happen to the nation if Harris is elected president.
“Our whole country will end up being like Detroit if she’s elected president,” Trump said. “We’re not going to let her do that to this country. We’re not gonna let it happen.”
Democrats in Michigan — one of the states likely to determine which party wins the White House — were apoplectic.
“Detroit is the epitome of ‘grit,’ defined by winners willing to get their hands dirty to build up their city and create their communities — something Donald Trump could never understand,” Gov. Gretchen Whitmer wrote on X, the social media site formerly known as Twitter. “So keep Detroit out of your mouth. And you better believe Detroiters won’t forget this in November.”
Republicans from the state were stunned by Trump’s remarks as well.
“Michiganders haven’t been this proud of the city of Detroit since Henry Ford put the world on wheels. The Lions and Tigers are flying high, the city has come back to life, and in comes Donald Trump to crap all over that progress,” said an exasperated GOP strategist who reached out to a Times reporter after hearing the remarks, and was granted anonymity to speak candidly. “I think he shouldn’t be surprised when they reward his comments by giving Kamala Harris their votes. And it won’t just be Detroit residents. It will be hundreds of thousands of voters who are deeply proud of their city.”
Trump exits the stage after the rally.
(Wally Skalij / Los Angeles Times)
Harris said Trump’s remarks about Detroit represent a trend.
“My opponent, Donald Trump, yet again, has trashed another great American city when he was in Detroit, which is just a further piece of evidence on a very long list of why he is unfit to be president of the United States,” Harris told reporters Thursday in Las Vegas.
Trump similarly criticized Milwaukee in a meeting with House Republicans shortly before the Republican National Convention was held there, in the battleground state of Wisconsin, earlier this year. He has also disparaged Philadelphia and Atlanta, both of which are in states that will determine which party wins the White House.
A Corona Del Mar Middle and High School student was suspended this week for remarks made to another student that included the words “Free Palestine,” according to school officials and social media posts.
Annette Franco, a spokeswoman for the Newport-Mesa Unified School District, confirmed that the student was suspended but declined to provide any details. She emphasized in an email to the Times that students are not disciplined for exercising their right to free speech.
“While we cannot share specifics of the situation, due to student privacy, we assure you that appropriate action was taken based on the facts of what occurred,” she wrote in a statement. “We value students freedom of speech, but we will not tolerate hateful speech in our schools, especially not hate speech that incites others to engage in this negative behavior.”
The incident comes about a month after swastikas were tagged on the locker of a Jewish student, and after Hamas militants launched a brutal attack on southern Israel, sparking an ongoing war that has left 1,200 Israelis and 11,000 Palestinians dead. Authorities are investigating the swastika incident as a hate crime.
The family of the student in the recent incident could not be reached for comment Saturday. But a woman identifying herself as Zeina on Instagram claimed she was the student’s aunt. In her post, she provided details about the incident with a photo of the suspension letter written by Jacob Haley, the principal at Corona Del Mar Middle and High School.
In the suspension letter, the student is accused of violating two education codes that prohibits students from harassing and threatening other students. The letter read: “The incident that caused this suspension follows: [the student] said threatening remarks to a young lady in class. He said ‘Free Palestine’.”
The student, whom The Times is not naming because he is a minor, was suspended for three days.
In the Instagram post, the woman claimed her 13-year-old nephew had been called a “terrorist” by the female student and that her nephew responded by repeatedly saying, “Free Palestine”.
The woman claimed it wasn’t the first time her nephew had been harassed at school.
“Two weeks ago [he] was threatened with hate and racism comments by two Israeli students,” she wrote in her post. “The Israeli students told him go back to your country which is [Palestine] and started laughing, saying oh too bad you don’t have a country it’s getting bombed.”
The woman said her sister reported it to the principal who told her he would speak to the two boys and that neither of them got suspended. In the same social media post, the woman also took video and photos of a book on Israel that was sitting on the principal’s desk, accusing him of being biased.
Franco, the spokeswoman for the district, did not know if the two students in the most recent incident were suspended.
