MSNBC’s Chris Hayes Clarifies ‘No Evidence’ Fox Host’s Rant ‘Connected’ To Mass Shooting Of Homeless
MSNBC host Chris Hayes clarified that there’s “no evidence” a Fox News host’s rant about the homeless is “connected” to a mass shooting Governor Tim Walz (D-MN) invoked during a discussion of President Donald Trump and the murder of activist Charlie Kirk.
Kilmeade — to his credit — apologized this week for remarks about mentally ill homeless people on the Sept. 10 episode of Fox & Friends.
He said potentially violent patients who don’t “take the resources that we’re going to give” should be killed, and suggested “lethal injection.”
On Thursday night’s edition of MSNBC’s All In with Chris Hayes, Walz went off on Trump over his anti-speech behavior since Kirk’s murder, and juxtaposed Kilmeade’s rant with the shootings of eight homeless people in Minneapolis on Sept. 15 in two separate incidents.
When Hayes immediately clarified, Walz agreed that there’s “no connection that we see right now”:
GOV. TIM WALZ: And the attacks we see, we see a Fox News host on air talk about killing homeless people. And this week we saw eight homeless people shot in Minneapolis. And so, the consistency around this certainly isn’t there, but none of this surprises me with Donald Trump. But, Chris, I think the thing I am concerned about is this is not overreacting. This is our responsibility now. Getting a democracy back after it’s gone is a lot harder than defending it now. And so, I would just tell people this.
And it’s good to see — good to see some of those conservative voices standing up and saying that because this one is not even close. This is outrageous. And Jimmy Kimmel’s point — and look, we can all speak, you know, inarticulately. We can make mistakes. We can step back. But the idea that they’re going to chill speech just because it’s critical — because, look, this isn’t about any other type of speech other than what Donald Trump’s views as anti-Trump. He said it. This isn’t even about what was spoken about Charlie Kirk’s murder. This is about, he said it, you’re against Trump, you’re against Trump. And that’s what it’s all about.
So, look out here in Minnesota, we’re firewalling against this. I’m running again to make sure we protect those freedoms, make sure I’m out there to protect the folks who dislike me and they have every right to broadcast that and talk about why they dislike me. That is that is a God-given right. It is our Constitutional right. We’re going to protect it out here, but we should all be deeply concerned about what we saw happen here.
CHRIS HAYES: I want to be just be real clear about the awful tragedy you mentioned in Minnesota, the shooting of eight homeless individuals that — and following those comments from Brian Kilmeade on Fox News, there was no connection between those two as far as we know, just to be super clear about the facts here, because we are in treacherous times, and I want to just be clear on that.
WALZ: No, no. No, but what I’m saying is that people start to see this, Chris, and they’re able to say this. He should think about that because, look, we’re — these things — no, no connection that we see right now but the connection start to happen when we said it separate this speech that they’re giving from what Donald Trump is very clearly making sure it’s speech against him. All of this is unacceptable. Any type of political violence is unacceptable. So, hold everybody to the same standard.
But this is very different. If Jimmy Kimmel speaks out — and he’s a comedian.
HAYES: Yes.
WALZ: These are broadcasters on TV or elected officials. So, I — muddying the water on this, they know exactly what they’re doing.
Watch above via MSNBC’s All In with Chris Hayes.
