Fox News host Brian Kilmeade today referred to his female coworkers as Victoria’s Secret models who can also speak.
During Kilmeade’s Fox radio show, he joked to his female co-host Alisyn Camerota that that the way he and his network pick out female hosts is, “we go into the Victoria’s Secret catalogue and we said, ‘Can any of these people talk?’ And they all could and they all went to college.” Listen:
Earlier this year, Kilmeade’s female coworker walked off the set after he lamented, “Women are everywhere. We’re letting them play golf and tennis now. It’s out of control.”
Fox has been breathlessly hyping a video from Madison, WI supposedly showing “union thugs” attacking GOP state Sen. Glenn Grothman outside the Statehouse. In the video, protesters yell “shame” at Grothman as he enters the building, aided by Democratic State Rep. Brett Hulsey, who escorts Grothman through the crowd and reminds the protesters to be respectful of political opponents.
The video is dramatic, but to Fox News, it’s downright terrifying. Fox & Friends host Brian Kilmeade saw a “violent” “angry mob,” while fellow Fox & Friends host Steve Doocy found the footage “absolutely scary.” Fox host Sean Hannity said while watching the “frightening” video that he was “concerned for this guy’s safety.” And contributor Michelle Malkin agreed, viewing the video as proof that “the rule of law has been supplanted by the rule of the mob.”
But one key player in this story didn’t find the incident scary — Grothman himself. Despite Fox host Greta Van Susteren’s best attempts, while appearing on her show last night, Grothman said he never “felt threatened,” and that in fact, “there were many friendly people in that crowd”:
GRETA: Senator, were you surprised to see a Democrat step in like that, in that crowd, because it was very unfriendly to you sir?
GROTHMAN: No no no, there were many friendly people in that crowd. I think there were two people, who were kind of part of the protesters, who were kind of designated peacemakers. And there was an EMT there as well. I don’t really feel that I ever felt threatened, but it was nice to had a lot of courteous people in that crowd in addition to the yelling people.
Watch a compilation of Fox & Friends, Hannity, and Grothman’s comments:
Grothman’s comments will certainly not stop Fox from pretending that Grothman was violently threatened; Kilmeade and Doocy still fretted over the “angry mob” this morning — hours after Grothman appeared on Van Suteren’s show. But deceptively characterizing a video is at least a step up from deceptively playing a completely erroneous video, as Fox did Monday.
Last week, Fox News host Bill O’Reilly said on ABC’s The View that “Muslims killed us on 9/11,” prompting The View co-hosts Whoopi Goldberg and Joy Behar to walk off the set in disgust. Fox and Friends host Brian Kilmeade defended O’Reilly the next day, making an equally idiotic and “obviously false” statement that “not all Muslims are terrorists, but all terrorists are Muslims.” Kilmeade even defended that statement a few hours later on his radio show, saying it’s a fact “you can’t avoid.” But today, after having the weekend to think it over, the Fox and Friends host offered a half-hearted apology:
KILMEADE: On the show on Friday, I was talking about Bill O’Reilly appearance on the View and I said this: “Not all Muslims are terrorists but all terrorists are Muslims.” Well, I misspoke. I don’t believe all terrorists are Muslims. I’m sorry about that if I offended or hurt anybody’s feelings. But that’s it.
Yesterday on The View, Whoopi Goldberg and Joy Behar stormed off the set after Fox News pundit Bill O’Reilly slammed the Park 51 proposal because “Muslims killed us on 9/11!” The Fox News network quickly came to his defense, with Fox contributor Andrea Tantaros assuring Fox News host Megyn Kelly that “O’Reilly came on the show armed with facts. He came from a position of strength, he had numbers to back it up.”
This morning, Fox and Friends Brian Kilmeade criticized Goldberg and Behar for not being able to handle “a debate on training wheels.” As if to offer a serious defense of O’Reilly’s “facts,” Kilmeade stated that “not all Muslims are terrorists, but all terrorists are Muslims”:
KILMEADE: That debate is almost like our debate on training wheels. That was our debate seven weeks ago. And they can’t handle the give and take of the debate. They were outraged that someone was saying that there was a reason 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.
Fox host Geraldo Rivera tried to point this out. In reaction to Kilmeade, Rivera noted that when people talk about the “abortion bombers,” “they don’t say Christians blew up the abortion clinic. They say crazy people or extremists did it. You can’t…and that’s part of the noise that is causing Muslim Americans to feel besieged and beleaguered and being singled out.” But Kilmeade scoffed at the comparison.
As Washington Monthly’s Steve Benen notes, such a remark would “ideally” be a “Rick Sanchez moment” for Kilmeade, referring to the CNN hosts disparaging remark about Jewish people. But “that’s probably unlikely, since it’s Fox News and this kind of talk is painfully common.” (HT: Political Animal)
Update
After time to consider, Kilmeade decided the delusion “every terrorist is a Muslim” is a fact “you can’t avoid.” “It’s ridiculous that we have got to keep defining this,” he said today on his Fox News radio show.
Fox News’ Brian Kilmeade has been embarrassing himself more than usual over the last few days on Fox & Friends. Yesterday, after news broke that the cap BP placed on its leaking oil well had to be removed because one of its robots bumped the well’s venting system, Kilmeade had some harsh words for the robot. “I’d love to talk to that robot that knocked…the top off the cap that was in the bottom of the Gulf yesterday,” Kilmeade said. “What was that robot thinking?” he asked in disgust.
Then today, as Media Matters notes, the Fox co-host had this dim-witted question for President Obama:
KILMEADE: The President took a matter of hours to pick a commander in Afghanistan so why is it taking months to plug the leaking oil?
It’s unclear how Kilmeade believes that appointing an individual to lead the war in Afghanistan is comparable in difficulty to plugging an oil gusher in the Gulf of Mexico. Even Newt Gingrich found the comparison hard to swallow. “Is it fair to draw a correlation between the two?” co-host Gretchen Carlson asked. “No. No, no. The oil spill is more like the entire Afghan campaign,” Gingrich said.
To top it all off, on the Fox and Friends set this morning, Kilmeade played a little one-on-one with last night’s NBA draft top pick John Wall. After Wall dunked on Kilmeade and blocked his shots, Carlson had to show him how it’s done. Watch a compilation:
Last night on The Daily Show, Jon Stewart had to inform Kilmeade that “robots don’t think”:
STEWART: The BP guys, or the robot. Kilmeade. Robots don’t think. They’re machines. They don’t cry. They don’t fall in love. They can’t be your girlfriend. They’re f***in’ robots. It’s like talking to your toaster. “This English muffin is burnt! Why toaster!? Why?!?! Why have you done this to my breakfast?” Fox and Friends, I don’t want to have to do this everyday.
Fox News host Brian Kilmeade today referred to his female coworkers as Victoria’s Secret models who can also speak. 
