Fox’s Brian Kilmeade defends family separations: It’s not like these kids ‘are from Idaho or Texas’

Fox & Friends co-host Brian Kilmeade took a rather despicable angle while defending President Trump’s (now amended) family separation policy this Friday. During the segment, Kilmeade said that people outraged over the policy are forgetting that “these aren’t kids” who are being detained.

“It wasn’t President Trump’s idea to have everyone leave from Central and South America in June and walk up to the border,” Kilmeade said.

“Somebody has to deal with this issue,” he continued, adding that Trump is “trying to send a message to the other countries — this is not the way you do it because this is a country that has rules and laws.”

“We just can’t let everybody in that wants to be here.”

“Like it or not, these are not our kids,” he said. “Show them compassion, but it’s not like he’s doing this to the people of Idaho or Texas. These are people from another country.”

According to Kilmeade, critics of Trump’s separation policy are treating migrant children as if they’re more important  than “people in our country who pay taxes and have needs as well.”

The ensuing backlash prompted Kilmeade to later write a Twitter post walking back his comments.

“On FOX & Friends earlier, Of course-I didn’t mean to make it seem like children coming into the U.S. illegally are less important because they live in another country,” Kilmeade tweeted. “I have compassion for all children, especially for all the kids separated from their parents right now.”

“Nobody wants to see children in these circumstances and glad they are on their way to being reunited with their parents,” he added.

But as Bethania Palma of Snopes (full disclosure: she’s my sister) points out, Kilmeade’s claim that the children are “on their way” to be being reunited with their parents isn’t accurate.

https://twitter.com/bethaniapalma/status/1010215196445442048

Featured image via screen grab

Sky Palma

Before launching DeadState back in 2012, Sky Palma has been blogging about politics, social issues and religion for over a decade. He lives in Los Angeles and also enjoys Brazilian jiu jitsu, chess, music and art.