Fox host Brian Kilmeade: “I am just not comfortable with the Education Department collapsing”
Co-host Ainsley Earhardt suggested families move if they aren't satisfied with their state's education, and Kilmeade responded: "Some people just can't move”
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From the September 9, 2025, edition of Fox News' Fox & Friends
AINSLEY EARHARDT (CO-HOST): National report card was just released, and now it shows high school seniors are falling even further behind. More students than ever are scoring below the National Assessment of Education Progress for basic skills, and this is the first time since the pandemic these tests were given to twelfth graders.
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BRIAN KILMEADE (CO-HOST): I know most Republicans are for this, I am just not comfortable with the Education Department collapsing and things getting better. Because the same states that are having a problem, the problem's going to get worse, and the ones that don't have a problem, probably don't need the supervision, but then we lose total control at the federal level.
EARHARDT: But think about this, Republicans care most about the Republican states. Right? They're gonna care more. They care about all of them, but they care really about their voters, the people who voted them into office. So if the money goes all the way, let's use South Carolina as an example, goes all to South Carolina, then you live in New York, you're not happy with DEI in your schools? You're not happy with talking about gender? You move to South Carolina, you move to Florida.
KILMEADE: But why not have a federal authority to say DEI's got to go? And why not just be able to crack down and just say —
EARHARDT: You can for four years if you have Donald Trump. But what's the next guy going to do? What's the next woman going to do? Whoever's president next?
LAWRENCE JONES (CO-HOST): Just federally, it's, from a Constitution standpoint, the feds should have never been even involved with education. That's just not one of the duties that the founders gave them the ability to do. And we saw with that national approach, even George W. Bush, a Republican, famously tried to do it, No Child Left Behind, and it made the problem worse. And I just think if you get back to the basics and let the parents and the local, not just states, but the local communities decide. I benefited from -- we had school choice or choice of schools in my community, and it saved me and my brother and sister's life because we, the schools were competing against each other.
I do agree with Brian. Some of the other states are gonna fall through the cracks now, but it's up to the voters to elect new people.
KILMEADE: And some people just can't move. You know they got to --
JONES: It's true.