Fox’s Brian Kilmeade Compares Charlie Kirk NFL Tributes to Colin Kaepernick Taking a Knee
Fox News host Brian Kilmeade compared the NFL’s Charlie Kirk tributes to the 2016 saga of former quarterback Colin Kaepernick taking a knee before games in an eyebrow-raising moment on Monday morning.
It all started when the Fox & Friends panel, consisting of Kilmeade, Lawrence Jones, and Ainsley Earhardt, discussed various tributes to Kirk — who was assassinated last week — prior to college and NFL football games.
While Jones applauded the teams for standing up and showing support for Kirk, Kilmeade took the opportunity to resurrect another pre-game NFL moment, saying that the NFL “encouraged” it.
“This is not long ago, four years ago, the league was encouraging everyone to take a knee while the national anthem was up,” Kilmeade told Jones and Earhardt. “And hailing, uh… hailing, uhh… Colin Kaepernick, and now you have them saying if you want every team, it’s up to you, if you want to salute a conservative thinker who lived a brilliant life and really transcended everything. That’s gonna be your call. And a lot of them — 12 of them — said, ‘Yeah, we’re gonna do that.'”
Read the conversation here:
LAWRENCE JONES: This is not about politics. The assassination was political. But it’s a constitutional right to be have to have free speech … it’s our foundation, and if we don’t all, organizations, the culture, don’t draw a line in the sand to say, “That cannot happen ever again,” then it will continue. I think for the most part, the culture is getting it right.
BRIAN KILMEADE: Yeah, I would just add, too. This is not long ago, four years ago, the league was encouraging everyone to take a knee while the national anthem was up. And hailing, uh… hailing, uhh… Colin Kaepernick, and now you have them saying if you want every team, it’s up to you, if you want to salute a conservative thinker who lived a brilliant life and really transcended everything. That’s gonna be your call. And a lot of them — 12 of them — said, “Yeah, we’re gonna do that.”
AINSLEY EARHARDT: You are right though, both of you are right. It’s not about the politics when you’re honoring someone. This guy was brutally assassinated. We all watched it. We’ll always have those memories or that moment in our mind, seered in our minds, and it shouldn’t have happened. So, if it’s Democrat or a Republican, we’re not in support of any of this violence, political violence has no place in this country. That’s what the constitution is for. Free speech, you are allowed to say whatever you want.
In reality, the NFL did release a statement at the time, telling players they are “encouraged but not required to stand during the playing of the National Anthem.”
However, NFL owners jointly approved a new policy in 2018 compelling all players on the field to stand for the anthem or face fines.
Kaepernick created a stir across the league in 2016 when he began kneeling during the national anthem to protest racial injustice. While some players on other teams followed his lead, the quarterback was widely rebuked by many, including then-presidential candidate Donald Trump.
After the 2016-2017 season, Kaepernick opted out of his contract with the 49ers but never took a snap in the NFL again, prompting allegations that he was blackballed throughout the league over his political beliefs.
He later sued the NFL, which resulted in an undisclosed cash settlement in 2019.
Kilmeade came under fire after a remark made on Fox & Friends last week, when he suggested that violent homeless people who refuse treatment should be put to death.
On Sunday morning, he returned to Fox & Friends on his day off to deliver an apology:
We were discussing the murder of Iryna Zarutska in Charlotte, North Carolina and how to stop these kinds of attacks by homeless, mentally ill assailants, including institutionalizing or jailing such people so they cannot attack again. Now during that discussion, I wrongly said they should get lethal injections. I apologize for that extremely 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.
Watch above via Fox News.
