‘Wrong choice’: Fox News host shocks co-hosts by slamming return of Confederate statues

Brian Kilmeade surprised his Fox Friends co-hosts Thursday by breaking with the conservative line on Confederate monuments — declaring that Robert E. Lee shouldn't have a statue because he made a choice, and it was the wrong choice.The moment came after co-host Carley Shimkus noted that a Lee monument removed from a Charleston, South Carolina, school campus in 2021 had been put back on public display, and that Italian American groups had filed a federal lawsuit seeking to restore a Christopher Columbus statue removed from Columbus, Ohio's city hall in 2020.Kilmeade said the monuments debate broke the fever of George Floyd, but then delivered a view his audience rarely hears from him.I'm not necessarily into seeing Robert E. Lee's statue come back, he said. If you read his biography — in his own words, he didn't want a statue, Kilmeade noted that historians have documented Lee's post-war opposition to Confederate monuments, and pointed to the general's own history: Lincoln offered him command of the Union Army, and he turned it down to fight for the South. He made a choice, and it was the wrong choice, Kilmeade said.Co-host Ainsley Earhardt pushed back immediately. I'm surprised to hear you say that, she said, because you always say, let's not erase history.Kilmeade held firm. I would want to give a tribute to them — I'm not saying forget what Robert E. Lee did well — but to have his statue back up as if it's a tribute to him? He made a choice, and it was the wrong choice.Co-host Lawrence Jones staked out a middle ground, arguing the statues themselves weren't the problem. It is getting the history right, Jones said, adding that Confederate statues in Texas include plaques explaining the Civil War. The statues are fine. Just don't think that he's a hero, because he's not a hero.Kilmeade drew a sharp distinction between Lee and others swept up in the monument removals. Taking down statues of Teddy Roosevelt or renaming schools honoring Abraham Lincoln, he said, was a different category — calling some of those moves asinine.The remarks represent a notable departure for Kilmeade, who in 2020 urged Americans not to destroy historical monuments as protesters targeted them across the country.President Donald Trump signed an executive order in March 2025 directing the Interior Department to review monuments removed since 2020 and restore those deemed improperly taken down.