FOX & UNFRIENDS

‘Fox & Friends’ Host Dares to Criticize Trump’s NFL Comments

Ainsley Earhardt had to immediately walk back Brian Kilmeade's comments, however.

Donald Trump may not have liked what he saw on his favorite show Monday morning. In a rare and fleeting moment of dissent, Fox & Friends co-host Brian Kilmeade actually had something negative to say about the president’s words.

While Kilmeade stressed that he has been “out front saying how outrageous” he thinks it is for NFL players to kneel during the national anthem from “day one.” But that being said, he added, Trump “made things so much worse and the language he used was terrible.”

At a rally in Alabama on Friday, Trump asked the crowd, “Wouldn’t you love to see one of these NFL owners, when somebody disrespects our flag, to say, ‘get that son of a bitch off the field right now. He’s fired.’” In a subsequent tweet, he appeared to call for an NFL boycott, writing, “If NFL fans refuse to go to games until players stop disrespecting our Flag & Country, you will see change take place fast. Fire or suspend!”

“When you have Robert Kraft coming out against you, you know you’ve gone too far,” Kilmeade added, referencing the Trump-supporting New England Patriots owner who denounced the president’s “divisive” comments in a statement on Sunday. “He made things immeasurably worse by speaking out,” he added. “And I know what the intention was, but the language used, it was galvanizing in the wrong direction.”

“Well, Brian, he is the voice for a lot of people out there,” co-host Ainsley Earhardt said, jumping in quickly to clean up after Kilmeade. “A lot of people agree with him and are scared to give their opinions.” While she was not saying she “agrees” with Trump per se, she wanted to recognize the people out there who see him as “their voice.”

If Kilmeade isn’t careful, he may find himself less in the president’s favor than Fox & Friends Weekend host Pete Hegseth, who asked on Sunday why NFL players were kneeling to protest “the least sexist, least racist, most free, most equal, most prosperous country in the history of humankind.”

Doesn’t he know that’s the kind of thing Trump wants to hear when he tunes in every morning?

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Matt WilsteinSenior Editor

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