Brian Kilmeade

Brian Kilmeade
Brian Kilmeade (left) and Steve Doocy At Barnes and Noble in Westbury, NY
Born	(1964-05-07) May 7, 1964 New York City, New York, USA
Education	C.W. Post (B.A.) Minor Political Science
Occupation	Co-host of Fox & Friends (Fox News Channel) and Host of Kilmeade and Friends (Fox News Radio)
Religion	Roman Catholicism
Website	http://www.briankilmeade.com

Brian Kilmeade (born May 7, 1964) is a Fox News Channel television personality. Weekdays, he co-hosts Fox's morning show, Fox & Friends, along with Steve Doocy and Elisabeth Hasselbeck. He has written several books - fiction and non-fiction - and also hosts the Fox News Radio program Kilmeade and Friends.^[1]

Life and career

Kilmeade was born in New York City, New York. He is of Irish and Italian descent.^[2] After graduating from Massapequa High School in 1982, Kilmeade attended C.W. Post (Brookville, New York), where he graduated with a Bachelor of Arts (1986). He began his career as a correspondent on Channel One News, a daily national high school television news program. He later served as an anchor and host for KHSC-TV in Ontario, California.^[3] He co-hosted The Jim Brown Show on XTRA-AM, an all-sports radio network. In 1993, Kilmeade joined Brown as part of the announcing team for the inaugural Ultimate Fighting Championship event, conducting post-fight interviews. He would move into the play-by-play role for UFC 2 and UFC 3 in 1994.

Kilmeade was a freelance sports anchor for WVIT (NBC) in Hartford, beginning in 1997. He was a sideline reporter for the MSG Network, where he covered the New York/New Jersey Metro-Stars, a major league soccer team based in Giants Stadium.

Later, he worked as a feature reporter and anchor for Newsport TV, where he hosted Newsport Journal, a daily magazine show for the national sports network. Additionally, he also anchored Scoreboard Central, a live half-hour general sports program. He has ten years of self-proclaimed experience as a stand-up comedian.

Kilmeade is the author of The Games Do Count: America's Best and Brightest on the Power of Sports^[4] and It's How You Play the Game.^[5] He is a frequent anchor of The Five airing nightly at 5pm eastern on FNC. In April 2006, he filled in the Fox News Radio time slot of former Fox anchor Tony Snow, who had left the network to become Press Secretary in the George W. Bush Administration.

Kilmeade is also author of George Washington's Secret Six,^[6] an historical novel based on facts of the Culper Ring who were spies that worked for George Washington during the American Revolution.

Kilmeade is Roman Catholic.^[7]

Controversial remarks

Kilmeade faced criticism after expressing support for the far-right English Defence League, often described as an extremist group,^[8] during an interview with their leader 'Tommy Robinson' (real name Stephen Lennon). He finished the interview with the words "Tommy, we got your back and we'll definitely look to keep in touch, it's great what you're doing".^[9]

"We keep marrying other species and other ethnics"

On July 8, 2009, Kilmeade and two co-hosts were discussing a study that, based on research done in Finland and Sweden, showed people who stay married are less likely to suffer from Alzheimer's disease. Kilmeade commented, "[In the United States] we keep marrying other species and other ethnics...". Ignoring attempts by co-host Gretchen Carlson (who is of Swedish descent) to interrupt him, he added, "See, the problem is the Swedes have pure genes. Because they marry other Swedes .... Finns marry other Finns, so they have a pure society. In America we marry everybody, we marry Italians and Irish."^[10]

On July 20, 2009, Kilmeade apologized for his remarks, saying, "I made comments that were offensive to many people. That was not my intention, and looking back at those comments I realize they were inappropriate. For that I sincerely apologize. America [is a] huge melting pot, and that is what makes us such a great country..."^[11]

"All terrorists are Muslims"

In a follow-up discussion to Bill O'Reilly's appearance on The View on October 14, 2010 – in which Whoopi Goldberg and Joy Behar walked off after O'Reilly said that people did not want a mosque built at Ground Zero because "...Muslims killed us on 9/11" – Kilmeade dismissed the View debate as "elementary" and said:

They were outraged that somebody was saying ...

There was a certain group of people that attacked us on 9/11. It wasn't just one person, it was one religion. Not all Muslims are terrorists, but all terrorists are Muslims.^[12]

Back on his radio show Monday, Mr. Kilmeade said,

What I should have said, and I’d like to clarify, is all terrorists who killed us on 9/11; with the Cole; and the Khobar; and the ‘98 embassies; that’s what I should have said.^[13]

Kilmeade's remarks have been criticized^[14][15][16] and Keith Olbermann called the claim "both inaccurate and prejudiced" as groups other than Muslims have committed terrorist acts.^[17]

"You grew up on tacos"

On October 4, 2013, Fox News meteorologist Maria Molina was brought on Fox and Friends to talk about tacos to celebrate National Taco Day. Kilmeade asked Molina: "So what are the tips we need to know? You grew up on tacos, correct?" Molina denied it, explaining she was Nicaraguan and that tacos are not native to Nicaragua. At this point Kilmeade's co-host Elisabeth Hasselbeck asked Molina "But if you did, if you did grow up on tacos?"^[18][19]

"Bob Bergdahl looks like a member of the Taliban"

On June 3, 2014 Kilmeade made a reference about Bowe Bergdahl's father on air stating “I mean, he says he was growing his beard because his son was in captivity. Well, your son’s out now. So if you really don’t want to no longer look like a member of the Taliban, you don’t have to look like a member of the Taliban, are you out of razors?"^[20]

“Do you make Kool-Aid?"

On November 25, 2015 Kilmeade stepped on a known stereotype by interjecting with a question about Kool-aid to his black co-host.^[21]

References

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Brian Kilmeade.

• Appearances on C-SPAN
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