Sara Pequeño: Fox News host said the quiet part loud about how some conservatives view homeless

Fox News host Brian Kilmeade recently apologized for an “extremely callous remark” where he said that homeless people who experience mental illness and refuse treatment should be executed.

“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,” Kilmeade said on Sept. 14, after the moment went viral.

On Sept. 10, Kilmeade and others were on “Fox & Friends” discussing the fatal stabbing of Iryna Zarutska in Charlotte, North Carolina. The man accused of killing her reportedly suffers from mental illness and was living in a homeless shelter at the time. During this conversation, cohost Lawrence Jones said that unhoused people who refuse treatment for mental illness should “be locked up in jail,” to which Kilmeade replied that they should be subjected to “involuntary lethal injection.”

“Just kill ‘em,” he added.

Sure, it’s good that Kilmeade apologized. It’s also an instance of the quiet part being said out loud – that some conservatives would rather homeless people die than treat them as people with free will who deserve our compassion.

Dehumanizing homeless people won’t solve crime

The idea that homeless people should be treated with compassion should not be radical, yet it is. And while mental illness and addiction issues are complicated, it doesn’t mean the solution is to strip people of their agency.

More than 770,000 people were living in shelters or outside in January 2024, according to an analysis from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. This is the largest number recorded since the department began collecting data in 2007.

Like many vulnerable populations, unhoused people have been targeted by President Donald Trump since he got re-elected. It’s part of the reason he sent the National Guard to Washington, D.C., in August. It’s why he signed an executive order in July that made it easier for governments to remove encampments and involuntarily commit people to institutions. And it’s why his administration gutted the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness back in April.

More Trump takeovers mean fewer real solutions

Nonetheless, the dehumanization of homeless people is not solely a right-wing problem. In August, California Gov. Gavin Newsom introduced a task force whose goal is to tear down homeless encampments in the state’s major cities.

“No one should live in a dangerous or unsanitary encampment, and we will continue our ongoing work to ensure that everyone has a safe place to call home,” Newsom said in a statement.

The governor claims that there will also be efforts to provide resources for California’s homeless population, but this does not change the fact that it can create uncertainty in the lives of people who are unhoused, or that advocates stress the need for housing-first policies.

We must listen to the people who are subjected to these policies, as well as experts who stress the need for compassionate policies in the first place. We must treat everyone as if they are human – full stop. Kilmeade’s comment on Fox News is indicative of a troubling trend of demonizing people who need help, not state-sponsored violence. But we should be prepared to see just that.

Trump is perfectly content ignoring facts and basic human decency in favor of “law and order,” and he believes that violent criminals and homeless people are one in the same. I doubt he’s going to stop targeting vulnerable populations any time soon, and I fear for what this means for unhoused people in our community. The more we are willing to treat a vulnerable population as nothing more than a nuisance or liability, the further we stray from our collective understanding of humanity.

Follow USA Today columnist Sara Pequeño on X: @sara__pequeno.