Comedy Central’s The Daily Show recently took aim at Ainsley Earhardt for her most obnoxious habit (mentioning “my friend” in countless instances to support her points, whether these friends exist or not). This week, HBO’s Last Week Tonight takes aim at another Fox and Friends host, Brian Kilmeade, during an episode that aired on the eve of Indigenous Peoples’ Day. That newly Biden-installed federal holiday, of course, runs concurrent to what the U.S. still recognizes as Columbus Day, and no one is more excited about Christopher Columbus than Brian Kilmeade.
Kilmeade, who once claimed to have read Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf in high school, is absolutely obsessed with his hero, Christopher Columbus. On that note, John Oliver was thrilled to introduce this exhaustively repetitive montage called “Brian Kilmeade likes Christopher Columbus way, way too much.” It ended with the kicker of Steve Doocy (who’s used to this by now) smiling and nodding while Kilmeade admitted, “I was Christopher Columbus for Halloween, no pictures available.” To which Ainsley Earhardt responded, “I’m like, ‘What are you talking about?'”
That followed a barrage of Kilmeade excitedly repeating (in different contexts) how Columbus’ explorer deeds were “like going to the moon, today, in the 1960s, only more dangerous.” The continued “more dangerous” claims only grow more ridiculous, so then, it was time for Kilmeade to claim that the Fox News morning show is “going to be the Christopher Columbus of knockerball.” And then comes Kilmeade bragging, “I was almost the Christopher Columbus of this show.” He also defended his hero to Steve Doocy as “totally Italian. Couldn’t be more Italian.”
In the end, Kilmeade declared, “If you read one reputable book on Columbus and still don’t think we should have a Columbus Day, you’re not paying attention.”
Meanwhile, the New York Times has published a primer on Indigenous Peoples’ Day. The supporters of this federal holiday are pushing back against the holiday that celebrates a navigator who arguably paved the way for genocide and colonization, which in turn, has fostered continued discrimination against Indigenous peoples.
