Kyle Rittenhouse said during a sit-down with Fox News host Tucker Carlson that he supports the Black Lives Matter movement — blowing up the competing partisan caricatures of the “Kenosha shooter.”
SO WHAT
The left’s portrayal of Rittenhouse as a right-wing extremist is so off base that it’s not even clear the mainstream right can claim him anymore.
WHAT HAPPENED
“This case has nothing to do with race. It never had anything to do with race. It had to do with the right to self-defense” Rittenhouse told Carlson in a preview of the interview released Sunday. “I am not a racist person. I support the BLM movement. I support peacefully demonstrating.”
Rittenberg — speaking to Carlson after being acquitted of all charges Friday in his high-profile murder case — went on to call for criminal justice reform.
- The interview, Rittenhouse’s first, will air Monday on ‘Tucker Carlson Tonight.”
HOW PEOPLE REACTED
On Twitter, some critics of the media, like left-wing journalist Glenn Greenwald, pointed out that Rittenhouse’s expression of support for BLM flew in the face of months of coverage elite coverage and commentary suggesting he was a violent racist.
On the left, many commentators dismissed Rittenhouse’s comments and stuck to their unfounded view that he’s a white supremacist.
Some gleefully highlighted obscure right-wing users who expressed dismay at the news.
Leading figures on the populist right, though, argued that Rittenhouse should be allowed to try for a normal life, even if that meant mouthing progressive pieties.
Jenna Ellis, a legal adviser to Donald Trump during his presidency, warned that right not to “turn on Kyle for saying this,” saying, “He isn’t a political champion for either side.”
