Kyle Rittenhouse liked the policies of Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang, he has revealed – describing him as ‘a good dude’ – but said he went to a Trump rally because he knew the former president backed the police.
Rittenhouse, 18, spoke to Fox News host Tucker Carlson for an interview on Sunday, the majority of which was broadcast during primetime on Monday.
Rittenhouse was acquitted on Friday by a court in Wisconsin for his shooting dead of two protesters in August 2020, during Black Lives Matter riots in the city of Kenosha.
On Wednesday, the channel aired more footage from Carlson’s interview with the teenager, during which the two discussed politics.
He said he was ‘not a political person’ but had watched Yang’s campaign with interest as he ran for the Democratic presidential nomination in early 2020.
‘I was a pretty big Andrew Yang supporter before all this,’ Rittenhouse said.
‘I was part of the Yang gang. He’s a good dude.’
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Kyle Rittenhouse told Tucker Carlson, in a clip from their interview aired on Wednesday night, that he was attracted to Democrat Andrew Yang’s candidacy during the 2020 election
Andrew Yang is pictured calling for an end to racist attacks on Asians in New York City in March 2021. Yang was the first Democrat to drop out of the primary, in February 2020
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Rittenhouse, who insisted throughout his 19-day trial in Kenosha that he was in the city that night to prevent the destruction of his father’s hometown, and acted in self defense when he opened fire, said he paid little attention to the 2020 campaign.
‘I wasn’t into politics,’ he told Carlson.
‘I didn’t know much about Trump. I didn’t know much about Biden.
‘I went to a Trump rally because Trump supports the police. That’s what I liked about Trump. I didn’t know much about politics. I was just a 17-year-old kid.
‘I liked Andrew Yang. I liked his policy little bit. Very intelligent.’
Yang was the first of 13 Democratic contenders to drop out of the primary, ending his long-shot campaign in February 2020. He went on to run unsuccessfully in the Democrat primary for mayor of New York, and, after dropping out, announced in October of this year that he had quit the Democratic party and was now an independent.
Rittenhouse on Tuesday met Trump at his Mar-a-Lago estate, the former president revealed.
Trump told Sean Hannity that the teenager was ‘a fan’ of his.
‘Kyle called. He wanted to know if he could come over, because he’s a fan,’ Trump said on Fox News Channel on Tuesday night.
Donald Trump met Kyle Rittenhouse on Tuesday, with the teenager traveling from his Illinois home to Florida ahead of an interview at the weekend with Tucker Carlson
Kyle Rittenhouse went to visit Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago on Tuesday, the former president said
Rittenhouse sat down with Carlson days after being cleared of homicide, attempted homicide and more in the shooting deaths of two men
‘Really a nice man. He came over with his mother.’
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Trump said Rittenhouse should never have been brought to trial, insisting that he acted in self-defense.
‘That was prosecutorial misconduct,’ said Trump.
‘He would have been dead.
‘He’s a really good young guy. 18 years old. Just left Mar-a-Lago a little while ago.
‘That was prosecutorial misconduct, and it should never have happened.’
Rittenhouse said in the interview, recorded two days before meeting Trump, that he did not want to get sucked into politics.
‘I’ve been trying to stay out of politics lately,’ he told Carlson.
‘No matter what direction I’m going to go, there is going to be people who don’t support me no matter what.
‘I think it’s just in my best interest to avoid politics. I’m not a political person.’
Much of Rittenhouse’s Facebook was devoted to praising law enforcement, with references to Blue Lives Matter – the movement that supports police
Kyle Rittenhouse, now 18, is seen in the courtroom during his two-week trial
Kyle Rittenhouse walked free after a jury in Kenosha, Wisconsin, decided he had been acting in self-defense when he shot dead two men and injured a third during BLM protests last summer
Rittenhouse fatally shot Joseph Rosenbaum (left), 36, with an AR-15-style semiautomatic rifle after Rosenbaum chased Rittenhouse across a parking lot and threw a plastic bag at him shortly before midnight on August 25, 2020. Moments later, as Rittenhouse was running down a street, he shot and killed Anthony Huber (right), 26, a protester from Silver Lake, Wisconsin
The teenager was also asked by Carlson for his reaction to the three men he shot – Anthony Huber and Joseph Rosenbaum, who he killed, and Gaige Grosskreutz, who he injured – bring hailed as heroes.
Grosskreutz, Carlson pointed out, was armed and ‘stuck a loaded gun in your face.’
Rittenhouse said: ‘I told him I was going to the police and he pointed a gun at my head.
‘From what I remember, time slowed down, I remember staring down the barrel of a pistol and thinking I’m about to die.
‘He hasn’t been charged with a single crime.’
Rittenhouse said that a pending DUI charge against Grosskreutz was dropped before the trial, which prevented his attorneys from bringing it up.
‘In my opinion, there’s no winners in this case, no heroes in this case,’ said Rittenhouse.
‘I defended myself. I was attacked.
‘I think it’s actually quite sickening how Mr Huber and Mr Grosskreutz are described as heroes when it’s on video that they attempted to murder me in the middle of the street.
‘The message that I get from it is that they are saying you can go out and riot and attack anybody and you will have the support from the media and the politicians to do whatever you want and kill innocent people.’
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