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Fox & Friends host Brian Kilmeade was apparently attempting to one-up General Mark Milley on air when he claimed he read Adolph Hitler's manifesto Mein Kampf as part of his high school curriculum.
Gen. Milley recently said he read Mao Tse Tung and Karl Marx during a congressional hearing, noting having read their writings didn't automatically make him a communist.
Milley, the Joint Defense Chiefs of Staff Chairman, was defending the study of Critical Race Theory at military schools. He stated members of the military should be educated, "well read" and "open minded," especially on issues like Critical Race Theory.
"So it is important that the leaders, now and in the future, do understand it. I've read Mao Tse Tung. I've read Karl Marx. I've read Lenin. That doesn't make me a communist."
"So what is wrong with understanding, having some situational understanding about what the country for which we are here to defend?"
In reference to Milley's statement, Fox News pundit Kilmeade said Milley "totally missed the point."
"He said, 'Oh, I read Mao, I read Stalin.' That has nothing to do with it."
Then the Fox host brought up Hitler's Mein Kampf and did exactly what he accused Milley of—completely missed the point.
"We read Mein Kampf in school. No one thought we were Nazis. That is part of the curriculum."
"You find out about other things and other insurgencies. We get it. That has nothing to do with critical race theory.
You can see Kilmeade's claim here:
Brian Kilmeade claims he read Mein Kampf in schoolpic.twitter.com/E1kf62Oxrq— Aaron Rupar (@Aaron Rupar) 1624886409
Twitter users were highly dubious of Kilmeade's claim.
Was his school nazi school?https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1409501877566332929\u00a0\u2026— Molly Jong-Fast (@Molly Jong-Fast) 1624888438
Strange things were afoot at Massapequa High School in the early 1980s to be assigning a 600-page book to teenagers— Aki Peritz (@Aki Peritz) 1624889069
If I had to guess a book Brian Kilmeade had read, I would have gone with something more akin to "My Pet Goat."pic.twitter.com/n3MUwoGOzO— Mrs. Betty Bowers (@Mrs. Betty Bowers) 1624897306
They were also confused about what Kilmeade's literary history had to do with anything.
umm...in a U.S. school?https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1409501877566332929\u00a0\u2026— Brian J. Karem (@Brian J. Karem) 1624905627
There is no public K-12 school in this country that has ever assigned Mein Kampf as mandatory reading.\n\nProve me wrong.— Lionel Hutz Law (@Lionel Hutz Law) 1624886528
He didn't say it was assigned. He probably just picked it up at the library, having finished Benito Mussolini's The Doctrine of Fascism and The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.— Ivonne Rovira \ud83d\udc89 not \ud83e\udda0 (@Ivonne Rovira \ud83d\udc89 not \ud83e\udda0) 1624899986
Not as a public school assignment. He meant in a book club in his Hitler Youth Group.— Snarky Duck (@Snarky Duck) 1624905806
In my personal experience I\u2019ve never been instructed to read Mein Kampf in school. Maybe Brian Kilmeade was apart of an exclusive club at his high school that practice a certain ideology that wasn\u2019t appropriate nor popular in Germany.— remmy robertson (@remmy robertson) 1624906192
Brian Kilmeade secretly read Mein Kampf when the rest of the class was reading To Kill A Mockingbird.— Unvarnished Truth\u2122 (@Unvarnished Truth\u2122) 1624905712
I'm always surprised when a host on Fox claims to read a book, but not really surprised that it would be that one.— Mrs. Betty Bowers (@Mrs. Betty Bowers) 1624896318
Kilmeade attended Massapequa High School in the 80s, in Long Island, New York.
HuffPost noted the school could not be reached for comment about their curriculum at that time.