A FOX News host has apologized after he said homeless people who refuse help should be executed by the government.

Brian Kilmeade made his original comments on Sept. 10, the same day conservative figure Charlie Kirk was assassinated in Utah during a campus appearance. Kilmeade and colleagues on "Fox & Friends" had been talking about the Aug. 22 murder of Ukrainian refugee Iryna Zarutska in Charlotte, North Carolina, by a man authorities say was mentally ill but not institutionalized.

When a co-host said mentally ill and homeless people should be more aggressively detained and forcibly treated, Kilmeade added: "Or involuntary injection or something. Just kill 'em."

Speaking on Fox on Sept. 14, Kilmeade apologized for what he called a "callous" remark.

"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," he said.

The United States is undergoing a significant change in how it addresses visible homelessness, following President Donald Trump's order that service providers receiving federal funding must focus first on locking up people with drug or mental health challenges, which some homeless service providers fear will demonize the homeless.

Trump has long criticized how the United States manages homelessness, and argues public streets aren't safe for either the homeless or residents. The president has deployed the National Guard to Washington, DC, in part to remove homeless encampments around the city.

"Surrendering our cities and citizens to disorder and fear is neither compassionate to the homeless nor other citizens," Trump said in a July 24 order shifting the federal approach to homelessness. "The federal government and the states have spent tens of billions of dollars on failed programs that address homelessness but not its root causes, leaving other citizens vulnerable to public safety threats."

While conservatives often complain that services for the homeless have cost billions of dollars over the decades, providers note that the money is a drop in the bucket compared to what's needed. They also have suggested that such complaints lack a nuanced understanding that the vast majority of people are only temporarily homeless and not suffering from either mental illness or drug use, and that the best way to end homelessness is to help people get homes.

Rep. Don Beyer, a Democrat representing Northern Virginia, called Kilmeade's original comments "sick." Other liberal critics noted that while conservatives are angry at people who celebrated Kirk's death, Kilmeade received little criticism for calling for extrajudicial killings of American citizens.

"America's homeless population includes over a million children and tens of thousands of veterans, many of whom served in Iraq or Afghanistan," Beyer posted on social media. "Nobody deserves to be murdered by the government for mental illness or poverty."

Last year, the annual nationwide assessment found that about 770,000 people were experiencing homelessness on a single night in January. That number includes people living in hotels or shelters, as well as 5,200 people still displaced by the 2023 Maui wildfires.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: FOX News host Brian Kilmeade apologizes for saying homeless people should be killed

Reporting by Trevor Hughes, USA TODAY / USA TODAY

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