Fox News host asks if 9/11 memorials will come down next

“Fox & Friends” host Brian Kilmeade on Monday questioned whether a memorial built to remember the airline passengers who took down a fourth plane on Sept. 11, 2001, over Pennsylvania might some day be taken down.

Kilmeade offered the remark on the 16th anniversary of the September 11 terrorist attacks. 

The host asked Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke if he was concerned that the Flight 93 National Memorial might be torn down some day.

That plane crashed near Shanksville, Pa., after two other planes crashed into New York City’s World Trade Center and another plane crashed into the Pentagon. It is believed that Flight 93 was also targeting Washington, D.C.

“Do you worry 100 years from now someone’s going to try to take that memorial down like they’re trying to remake our memorials today?” Kilmeade asked Zinke, who is attending a ceremony in Shanksville on Monday.

{mosads}“Well I’m one that believes that, you know, we should learn from history,” Zinke replied. “And I think our monuments are part of our country’s history. We can learn from it.

“Since we don’t put up statues of Jesus, everyone’s going to fall morally short. And I think reflecting on our history, both good and bad, is a powerful statement and part of our DNA.” 

Zinke is visiting Shanksville with Vice President Pence to commemorate the Sept. 11 anniversary.

The question from Kilmeade comes as Confederate memorials and monuments are under renewed scrutiny since the violence at a white supremacist rally last month in Charlottesville, Va., that left one counterprotester dead and numerous others injured. The “Unite the Right” rally was meant to protest the removal of a statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee.

Kilmeade is not the first to publicly question whether Sept. 11 memorials might also some day be taken down.

Maine Gov. Paul LePage (R) also recently more the comparison, saying, “Listen, whether we like it or not, this is what our history is.

“And to me, it’s just like going to New York City right now and taking down the monument of those who perished in 9/11. It will come to that.”

Others have raised questions about monuments to former Presidents George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, who both owned slaves.