Kyle Rittenhouse said he is “not a racist person” and supports the Black Lives Matter movement during an exclusive interview with Daily Caller co-founder Tucker Carlson.
“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. “I am not a racist person. I support the BLM movement … I support peacefully demonstrating.”
“I believe there needs to be change. I believe there’s a lot of prosecutorial misconduct, not just in my case but in other cases,” the 18-year-old continued. “It’s just amazing to see how much a prosecutor can take advantage of somebody.”
The entirety of the interview is scheduled to be released Monday on Fox News. (RELATED: Rittenhouse’s Lawyer Slams Biden For Suggesting Rittenhouse Is A ‘White Supremacist’)
Kyle Rittenhouse: “This case has nothing to do with race.”
Watch our exclusive interview, tomorrow at 8pm ET on @FoxNews pic.twitter.com/vXLEVtfycc
— Tucker Carlson (@TuckerCarlson) November 22, 2021
Rittenhouse told Carlson’s camera crew Friday that the jury made the right decision since “self-defense is not illegal,” a segment of an upcoming Tucker Carlson Originals documentary showed.
“The jury reached the correct verdict,” Rittenhouse said. “Self-defense is not illegal and I think they came to the correct verdict and I’m glad that everything went well. It’s been a rough journey but we made it through it. We made it through the hard part.”
The jury acquitted Rittenhouse of five felony charges Friday for the fatal shootings of Joseph Rosenbaum and Anthony Huber in Kenosha, Wisconsin. The then-17-year-old was additionally charged with injuring Gaige Grosskreutz with his AR-15 style rifle.
The shootings took place at a Black Lives Matter riot on Aug. 25, 2020, which erupted in response to the police shooting of Jacob Blake. The late-August incident left Blake paralyzed from the waist down.
President Joe Biden suggested that Rittenhouse is a “white supremacist” by adding a photograph of the teenager in a video that targeted former President Donald Trump for “refusing to disavow white supremacists.” White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki dodged questions raised by Fox News White House correspondent Peter Doocy relating to the video.
A handful of elected officials referred to the acquittal as “racist,” including Democratic Missouri Rep. Cori Bush, who called the verdict “white supremacy in action.”
“The judge. The jury. The defendant. It’s white supremacy in action,” Bush tweeted. “This system isn’t built to hold white supremacists accountable. It’s why Black and brown folks are brutalized and put in cages while white supremacist murderers walk free.”
On a Friday segment of MSNBC’s “The Reid Out,” guest host Jason Johnson claimed the acquittal made it “open season” for a “white nationalist” to shoot Black Lives Matter protesters. MSNBC host Tiffany Cross called Rittenhouse a “little murderous white supremacist” during a Saturday segment of “The Cross Connection.”
The Independent falsely reported Friday that Rittenhouse shot three black men, when in fact Rosenbaum, Huber and Grosskreutz were all white.