Fox News host Brian Kilmeade issued a rare on-air apology Sunday after sparking national outrage for suggesting violent homeless people should be executed by “involuntary lethal injection.”

The incendiary remark came Wednesday during a Fox & Friends segment on the murder of Ukrainian refugee Iryna Zarutska, who was fatally attacked on a North Carolina train. Authorities have charged Decarlos Brown Jr., a homeless man with a long criminal record, in connection with the killing.

As his co-host Lawrence Jones argued that violent homeless individuals should be jailed, Kilmeade went further, interjecting: “Involuntary lethal injection or something. Just kill ’em.” The comment drew swift condemnation from across the political spectrum and ricocheted across social media, prompting calls for accountability.

By Sunday morning, Kilmeade moved to contain the fallout. “I wrongly said they should get lethal injections. I apologize for that extremely callous remark,” he said, clarifying that his intention was to highlight public safety concerns but not to equate homelessness with criminality. “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.”

Advocates for the homeless blasted Kilmeade’s comments as dehumanizing, while critics on both the right and left warned that such language only inflames divisions over how to address the nation’s homelessness crisis.

(YWN World Headquarters – NYC)