Tucker Carlson & Kyle Rittenhouse

Looking back, the Kyle Rittenhouse story is one of the most important and significant in recent memory. It was only a little over three years ago. It was in August of 2020 in Kenosha, Wisconsin, an industrial town in that state. And riots had broken out after the death of George Floyd. And at the time, a lot of people imagined these were a direct response to George Floyd's murder. But of course they weren't. The entire thing was orchestrated and the people you saw rioting were in fact militia working on behalf of the Democratic Party with funding from some of the richest people in the United States. The whole thing had a political purpose. And of course that was achieved in the end, beating Donald Trump or getting him out of office. But at the time, in the middle of that chaos, almost nobody, and that would include the local police department, stood up to defend the town of Kenosha. And so that job was left to, among just a few others, a teenager called Kyle Rittenhouse. Rittenhouse showed up in Kenosha that night in August to defend a car lot that its owner thought would be burned. So Rittenhouse showed up with nobody else, with a rifle, to defend this lot. During that riot, several people tried to murder Kyle Rittenhouse, including a recently released mental patient who had a history of raping children, who tried to seize Kyle Rittenhouse's rifle and kill him with it. And he was not the only one who tried to do that. Kyle Rittenhouse defended himself with force and survived. For doing that, he was charged with murder. He went on trial and was ultimately acquitted. But in the process, we really saw who's on which side. People looked to Kyle Rittenhouse and said, obviously you're on the right side. You're trying to defend the town of Kenosha against rioters, and then your own life against murderers. And those who saw Kyle Rittenhouse as a threat to their plans to acquire more power, because Kyle Rittenhouse exercised the most basic right of all, and that's the right of self-defense. Well, it's hard to believe, but Kyle Rittenhouse today is only 20 years old. That's how young he was when that happened. He's had a remarkable life, and he's written about it in a new book called Acquitted, and we're honored to have him here on the set. Kyle Rittenhouse. Thank you for having me, Tucker. It's incredible that that was only a little over three years ago. You were 17 years old at the time. Yeah, absolutely. It's been a long journey. A lot of life lessons learned. I'm still learning life lessons, but going through that trial, spending time in jail, and just having the trajectory of my life change from wanting to be a firefighter EMT or a police officer to becoming this person of having to defend myself and being thrust into the national spotlight, being used on political campaigns such as Joe Biden's campaign, where he called me a white supremacist and just having my face plastered everywhere, calling me a white supremacist, a racist, a vigilante, and just smearing my name. I mean, there's so much to ask you, but it's interesting. I saw an interview you did the other day with someone I actually like and know well, but the framing of your story was really striking to me. This person has effectively demanded that you apologize for not being killed in Kenosha. The idea is that you had no right to defend yourself and you should have been murdered by the child molester or the parent Satanist who went after you later with a gun. Like you should have submitted to that. Is that a little bit weird to have people say to your face, I'm sorry that you weren't murdered and how dare you defend yourself? It is very weird. It makes me very uncomfortable. I think I know what you're talking about is some of the questions he asked me. I personally think they were out of line questions because I don't think he would have asked a person who was, say, in Israel, who had to defend himself or defend his country. I don't think he would have asked him the same questions, but I don't know why he asked me. Well, and I don't mean to single this person out. I mean, the only reason I'm bringing it up is because I think he speaks for many and the person I'm talking about is a thoughtful, nice person in my opinion, but those questions perhaps reflected his having not thought about it. That's kind of the view of a lot of people. How dare Kyle Rittenhouse use force to defend his own life? Absolutely, and I don't know how much of the trial he watched. I don't think he watched much because one of the questions he asked is why was I there with an illegal weapon and I had to clear the record for the thousandth time saying, no, the firearm was not illegal. The weapon was completely legal. Wisconsin law states this, this, and this. With respect, who gives a shit actually? The town was being burned by animals, by militia, and they're working for effectively the Biden campaign and they're hurting people and running around with guns and setting things on fire and destroying an American city. Whether your gun was quote legal or not, isn't that kind of the least interesting question? Absolutely, and it doesn't take away from my right to self-defense. The gun was completely legal, but if it wasn't, it doesn't mean I can't defend myself. If it was a howitzer, who cares? Like someone needs to defend civilization against the people who would destroy it. Absolutely, and these were the people trying to kill me that I protected myself against. These are the people who chased me down. These are people who cornered me. There are people who pointed guns at my face and hit me with skateboards and rocks. These were people who were trying to kill me. So there's been so much lying about what happened to you, but you're in this kind of amazing position where there's a contemporaneous video record of what happened, so anyone who's actually interested can watch, and I would strongly recommend that. It's one of the reasons I wanted to champion your cause because I watched the tape, and that's just, there's kind of no denying what happened. At one point, and pardon my bad memory, there was a guy who stuck a gun right in your face. Yes. And illegally, you're not allowed to do that. You didn't actually do anything to the guy, and he just, he was about to shoot you with it. What's his name and what happened? Was he ever charged for that? Well, so Mr. Grosskreutz is the one who pointed the gun. Grosskreutz, Gage Grosskreutz. Yes, he's the one who pointed the gun in my face. He was lying about it, saying he didn't point a gun in my face, and then finally, my attorney, Corey Shroffsey, was able to get that out in line of questioning during the trial, but he chased me down, asked where I was going, told him to go. I'm sorry to interrupt. Am I misremembering this? I vividly recall watching the video of him pointing a gun in your face. That's on video. Absolutely. During his testimony, though, my attorney had to send him down a line of questioning and literally show him the video and say, so you're pointing a gun at his face, essentially. And then he finally gave up and said, yes. Oh, right. When they have the video of you doing it, it's kind of hard to deny it. Absolutely. When you were standing three to five feet from him with your arms up in the air, he never fired, right? Correct. It wasn't until you pointed your gun at him, advanced on him with your gun, now your hands down, pointed at him, that he fired, right? Correct. I defended myself against him. I shot him in the bicep, disabling him from no longer being a threat to me. He's also suing me in the Eastern District of Wisconsin. I'm countersuing him for assault, but he's suing me with pretty much all the police officers in Wisconsin. With all the police officers in Wisconsin? Essentially, that's what it's like. I think it's like, I don't have an exact number, but it's more than 10, more than 10 police officers. Oh, he's suing the police officers? And me. Yeah. So is his contention that you should be allowed to riot with a firearm and threaten to murder teenagers if you don't like their politics? Or what is his argument? Well, I conspired with the police to deprive him of his constitutional rights, is his argument. What's funny about that is he actually doesn't mention in his complaint that he even had a gun. Okay. I guess, I mean, that is ridiculous. It's maybe not the most ridiculous civil suit filed recently. Most of them are ridiculous, as you know. My question is about law enforcement, though. Why wasn't he arrested for that? I don't know. I don't know why he wasn't arrested. He didn't tell the police that he had a gun. His story changed several times, according to the police reports. And it's on video that he chased me down and put a gun in my face. Right, so, but if I did that to some left-winger, which, of course, I would not do, but if I saw someone, I didn't like him, and I just went up and pointed a gun in his face, I'm pretty confident I'd be arrested for that. How could he not be arrested for that? I have no idea. I think it had to do with politics. So, I wanna get to what your life has been like since that day in August of 2020, but I have to ask, has it ever occurred to you, so you're 17 years old at the time, literally a child, and from a working-class background, for sure, you've worked all through high school, you have no privilege whatsoever, and you're a kid, and this town starts burning because the militia show up to burn it, and like, where are the men? Why does it fall to you to do this? Like, where are the men of Kenosha? Why aren't they standing outside their homes and businesses with firearms to defend their property, their families? Why have a teenager do it? Well, I know there were a lot of people out there that night who were protecting businesses. Well, the city burned, so not that many, I guess. Yeah, law enforcement was not really doing anything. It honestly should have been up to the government. I know President Trump said, hey, I'm willing to send in the National Guard, Governor Evers, just say the word. Governor Evers pretty much denied, and then when the National Guard finally did get deployed, they were just surrounding the courthouse and the police station. They weren't going out and making arrests or arresting the people who were burning Kenosha down. But, I mean, your people are still scolding you for not being willing to be murdered, for defending yourself, but Tony Evers is still the governor of Wisconsin, and he allowed his cities to burn because he didn't like Trump or something, and the police fell down on the job and didn't do their sacred duty to protect life and property of the public they serve in who pays their salaries. I've never heard anybody say a word about that. No, it's just something you don't hear talking about. You just hear them saying 17-year-old vigilante, 17-year-old white supremacist, and a bunch of other slurs, which I talk a lot about in my book, which is available for pre-order at reddenhousebook.com where I go more into the story. The smeary 17-year-old kid at the time saying I was all these bad things because I was attacked and I defended myself, and it's on video. Yeah, it's, you gotta kind of wonder though, do the people who allowed their city to be burned when they could have stopped it, I mean, a credible show of force stops craziness. These are not, Antifa are not heroes, they're cowards. Of course, they were literally wearing masks over their faces, that's how cowardly they are. You know, if someone showed up with a 12-gauge shotgun and just charged it in the air a couple times, they'd run away. Like, do people feel shame for not doing that? Like, how could you not defend your own city? I have no idea. That's a great question. I wish I did know. I wish I did know why they didn't do anything. I wish they would have stood up and I would never have been put into the situation to where I was attacked and I had to protect myself, but I don't know why they didn't. The other thing, and I mean, I hate to pick all these wounds. I'm a wound picker. But you used a firearm to defend your own life, okay? So it turns out we actually have a fairly well-funded organization in this country designed to support you in that principle, which is foundational, self-defense. We don't have rights without that. It's called the National Rifle Association. And I just want to ask you point blank, how much help did you receive from the NRA? I didn't receive any help from the NRA. I know people who work with the NRA and they don't want to touch my case. They don't want to help with the civil lawsuits. They didn't want to help with the criminal lawsuits. How could, and I don't, this is so inside it that I don't want to spend too much time on it, but I just gotta be, like, how could that be? How could the NRA, which has taken money from its members for 100 years, exactly for moments like this, how could they not help you? I have no idea. One of the organizations that did step up and help me is the National Association for Gun Rights. I don't know if you've heard of them, but they really helped with my legal bills and they helped pay some of the bills that I were facing because my family wasn't able to work. They really stepped up to the plate and they're continuing to help me to this day with some of my legal fees that I'm facing with a little bit of that. I'm glad someone's helping you. One of the saddest parts of your story, I remember this very well, is your desire was to go to college. I doubt everyone in your family went to college. You want to go to college. You're excited about going to college and you, from my reading, you couldn't go to college because of this. Absolutely, and hopefully in the future I'm able to go to college, but right now I'm just working a nine to five job trying to pay rent and trying to live out a normal life as possible. I know that's difficult right now because I'm doing all this media to talk about my book and to talk about these civil lawsuits that I'm facing, but I hope five, 10 years down the road, maybe even less than that, I'm able to go and get an education. I'm able to go to school and catch up. Is it weird to see, say, the leaders of BLM who are, at least in some sense, responsible for these riots, get rich and get all this money from corporate America and have nine houses and become literally millionaires for not doing anything other than destroy things. Is that painful for you to see that? It's a little weird. It is a little weird to see that. It's essentially getting rewarded for violence. Yes. And I don't know how that can be okay. I don't know how people can donate to causes that they know are going towards buying bricks and building clubs to bash windows and throw at police officers. That's where a lot of the money goes. They go towards inciting violence. So it's been three years since we've had these kinds of riots, because that was an election year. We're moving into an election year. Do you think the many people, I think it's the majority of the country, who hated that, hate riots, Torch Wendy's, how does that help anybody? The murders, the many murders that took place during those riots. Do you think they think that those are the last riots we're gonna have? I think there'll be riots again. I think especially with the election season coming up, the Israel-Hamas war, I think there'll be more Palestinian, because there's a lot of protests with the Palestinians sparking up right now. I think those are gonna turn into riots. That's just my personal belief. I think it's gonna spark up the closer we get to an election. How does gun control land with you now? When you hear politicians say, only our bodyguards, only we should have guns, you're not allowed to have guns, as someone who's actually used a gun to defend his own life, how does that? Well, our founding fathers were very intentional when they wrote the Constitution. Second Amendment's absolute. We have a right to defend ourself. We have a right to own firearms. People talk about, oh, weapons of war, that big, scary AR-15, but people don't realize the Constitution, the Second Amendment, it indicates poor weapons of war. It's not just like, oh, I'm gonna have a musket. No, they knew we were gonna evolve. They knew that there were gonna be different types of weapons. They wrote that so we have the ability to protect ourselves. Right, and by the way, if you're waging war on the population, maybe they want weapons of war. Maybe they need them, because clearly they are. They burn your cities? I mean, what is that? Yeah, I have no idea what they, I think what they're trying to do is they're trying to strip away the rights of citizens. Like, oh, we're just gonna compromise. 10 rounds, that's all you need. We're just gonna take your 30-round magazines, your standard-capacity AR-15 mags. We're gonna take your pistol braces, and then it goes from, you know, we're gonna take the AR-15s. You don't really need one. And then we're gonna take your shotguns. Of course. And then we're gonna take your pistols, and you're left defenseless. You're left to not put food on the table for your family, because there's a lot of hunters. I know you're a big hunter. A lot of people, they go out, and it's deer season in Texas right now, rifle season. A lot of people go out and they hunt and get their tag limit for their deer, and they feed their family throughout the year with what they hunt and harvest. Yeah, chemical-free meat. I mean, why wouldn't you? Absolutely. Yeah, no, so what is your, you're in Texas, it sounds like, most of the time. What kind of response do you get from people? I get a lot of side-eyes. What's a side-eye? I'll be sitting in a restaurant, and then people will just be like, start staring at me, and then they'll pull out their phone, and they'll just try to sneak pictures of me. Yes. Sometimes- Has that improved your table manners or no? No, it's definitely worse than, because sometimes I'll pull out my phone, and I'll act like I'm taking a picture of them. Really not, I'm just checking social media, going on X or something. But I'll act like I'm taking a picture of them, be like, how do you like it? Yeah, people wouldn't like that. Exactly. You spend a lot of support. Walking into your studio today, there was actually a gentleman who asked to take a picture with me. Not gonna say where you're at, because I know you're concerned for your safety as well, because there's a lot of crazy people out there. Yeah, there are. But very nice gentleman asked if he can take a picture. He recognized me from our first interview. Yes. He saw us where we filmed that. Do you get that a lot? Absolutely. I get a lot of support. Yesterday, I was at my hotel. I was carrying in a meatball marinara sub from Subway. Good for you. Delicious. And somebody stopped. And I declined to picture at first because I didn't look great. Oh, come on now. Yeah. Not everybody can be Chuck Carlson. Right. But I was like, no, I'm sorry. Because I was starving, but ended up having like a 20 minute conversation with them and took a picture with them. They played with my dog Milo. And nice people. There's a lot of nice people out there that are very supportive and want to take a picture. And that's just a glimpse of what my life is like. Well, that's great. There was, in the exchange that you had recently, in an interview that you just did, the one that I referred to earlier, that I did feel scolding you for living. But there was one point that is actually a fair question, which is like, what did that, I mean, you defended yourself. I think every man in that position would do the same, I hope. But it's got to come at a cost to you. I mean, that's a lot of violence. That's a lot of drama for a 17 year old. Like how did that affect you actually? Well, I have PTSD. There's times where I wake up in the middle of the night with nightmares or sweating because I'm thinking about what happened. Yes. It's not an easy thing to deal with. It's something I go through every single day. Really? Something that has kind of consumed my life with having to get over that trauma, which I'm still working on. I believe it. I would liken it to, I'm sure you've known people, I certainly have, who've taken life in war and no one comes up to them and says, how dare you shoot someone who's trying to kill you? Everyone understands that that's allowed, necessary. But it doesn't mean it's not hard on you. No, absolutely. It's something very difficult. I talked about my dog a little bit ago, Milo. Yes. He's my service dog and he's helped me through a lot. I actually dedicated my book to him. I wrote an entire chapter about him. What kind of dog? He's a Golden Retriever. And why has that been, flesh it out if you don't mind, why has that been important to have a dog? Well, sometimes you just feel very alone. Yes. Sometimes you just need to de-wind and he knows, if I'm not waking up from a nightmare and he knows I'm having a bad dream, he'll physically wake me up and he'll just be there for me and support me in a way. And dogs are nonjudgmental. Yes, they are. And that is the one person I know, without a doubt, I can always count on and I can always trust and I know he's never gonna let me down. And you really feel that? Absolutely. Yeah, I feel that too. No, I think you're 100% right. So do you, I mean, I can talk about dogs for hours, but just to, but do you actually think like, watching your life since you've gotten this dog, do you think your life has improved? I think it's helped me in many aspects of my life, especially the therapeutic part of training him, seeing the dog's ability of what those dogs are capable of. Yes. It's very therapeutic. Yeah, dogs are smarter than we think. In fact, if a dog does something wrong, it's your fault. Absolutely. Yeah, that's totally right. So what's your plan long-term? You haven't been able to do what you want. You said you wanna be a fireman, EMT, possibly a cop, then you wanna go to college. All of those have been denied you, at least to this point. So what are you thinking going forward? Well, I know I wanna get an education. I'm very far behind in my education. I'm not where I want to be or should be at my age. I wanna catch up to my peer group, maybe do some tutoring and then go to college and get an education when this whole ordeal of I'm going on media and when I'm done promoting the book is over, that's my goal. Do you think you'll be able to? One can only pray. Yeah, has it changed? I don't know, were you religious growing up? Not very, not very religious. I'm still working on getting closer with God. It's something I definitely want to grow in. So that's like a goal? Absolutely. So how has this experience changed your view of that? It taught me that one, I'm never alone. I know God's always with me and to trust whatever happens, it's God's plan and it's the right plan. Those are some of the two lessons that I did learn in a religious aspect of- When I was 20, I didn't know any other 20-year-olds who were thinking about God at all. I mean, maybe I was just in the wrong place, probably. But do you, it's interesting that you are at 20 and do you think that's because of what happened? Oh, absolutely, absolutely. I mean, I felt God with me during that trial. I felt him saying like, hey, whatever happens, it's going to happen and I'm going to be with you through it all because you're never alone because God's always with you. I'm still working on growing my religion and having a better understanding of how God wants me to live my life and becoming a better, stronger Christian. So I'm not calling for vindictiveness or anything like that. However, I do think it's worth knowing the people who supported you, who have supported you over the last three years and the people who have attacked you. Who would you say your biggest supporters have been and who have your biggest detractors been? Because everyone else should probably know that. My biggest supporters have been Christians. Those have been my biggest supporters and mostly a lot of people on the conservative side of things, the constitutionalist, people who believe in the rule of law. My biggest critics have been really people who don't really have like a sense of what's going on. They'll be like reporters from left-leaning news companies. Those have been my biggest critics and people have read them. So your biggest supporters have been your biggest critics. I would say so. And then what they write goes into other people's heads, which I would say most of America is independent, slightly left-leaning, slightly right-leaning. That's most of America. That's everyday people. And they believe in the constitution and they just want to see a good country. But then you have left-leaning reporters who villainize me and say all these false things to where everyday people sometimes believe that. Yes. Who do you think long-term has been worse for the country, Antifa or liberal reporters? Liberal reporters. Liberal reporters essentially encouraged Antifa and enabled them to a sense. We saw CNN with the one reporter said, mostly peaceful but fiery protest. What is a mostly peaceful but fiery protest? That's not a peaceful protest. That's mass arson. And that's obviously a lie, but then it's not an ordinary lie. It's a lie that abets evil, that allows evil things to happen, violence to happen. Absolutely. Kind of tells you a lot. So since you're one of the only people in this whole country who fought back against Antifa very effectively, are you worried about your safety? Oh, absolutely, absolutely. There are times where I don't want to leave my apartment because I'm like, I have stalkers. I have people who harass me. I get constant death threats on social media. And I'm scared like, hey, what if one of these death threats are legit? What if this person is going to try to kill me? I had somebody follow me with a drone. I had somebody show up at my apartment and it's just scary to think like, hey, these are people that want to kill me. Someone followed you with a drone? Yes. There's a very interesting thing. I got a message. I saw a drone and it was following me at the dog park with my dog. And I look up, I took a picture of it. I'll show you after. And I was like, wow, this is weird. We're not really supposed to have drones in this area. And then I got a text two days later from somebody on Twitter say, I'm coming for you. I'm going to kill you. Do you see any drones flying over your apartment lately or your house? And I was just like, okay. So what did you do with that? I alerted the authorities and I can't comment much on that, but they are looking into this stuff. Big picture, do you feel like the authorities, law enforcement has been sympathetic to you and trying to keep you from being killed? I think so. You don't sound too certain. I think they've been helpful to an extent as much as they're able to. There's a lot of these people are very hard to track down. Yes. And with it being active, I can't comment on it much. It's interesting, you're the second person we just interviewed Marjorie Taylor Greene and they've been trying to kill her at her house, kill her by swatting her for years. And she did not sound confident that law enforcement was doing its best to protect her. I see that a lot with a lot of politicians and public figures is I think sometimes law enforcement may be scared like, oh, if we protect them, we're going to get scrutinized. They're going to sue us or they're going to pull our funding or they're going to label us far right. Yes. And we're just going to have riots and protests in our area. And I don't think they want that. Have any politicians come out, tell us who they are who have come out to support you by name? Well, Marjorie Taylor Greene has been very supportive of me. Congressman Massey has been very supportive. There was a lot of politicians who wouldn't support me until after the trial. They would wait until a verdict was read. I'm not going to list those politicians names because I'm still pretty good friends with them and I still talk to them. Yes. But there were definitely people who wanted to wait until a verdict out of political pressure that they'll lose voters or constituents if they come out strong support of me. But the two you can name who watched the video, and again, anyone who hasn't ought to, because it's very obvious what happened, it's the video record shot from a lot of different angles by a bunch of different people. So it's not, you know, it's not fake. But the two you can name who supported you from the beginning were Massey and Marjorie Taylor Greene. That's correct. I mean, there are 435 of them, but only two. Only two that I can name off the top of my head. Since you're one of the very few people who's actually seen what this kind of violence looks like, and, you know, they tried to murder you, are you concerned that we're coming in for more of this? I can definitely see in the future that more of this will play out. More of this will happen, especially if the politicians who are running this country are still in office and they continue to enable it and they continue to encourage violence, encourage rioting. I could definitely see more riots and more violence in the future. Have you had any contact with Antifa since that day? Outside of my trial and once in Denver, Colorado, no. Do you find it weird that there's a group with a name and a presence on social media, Antifa, Antifa, however we're pronouncing it, and they're a militia, they're an organized group, far bigger than the Proud Boys or whatever kind of fake threat they're telling us exists. Those guys are all in jail. But there's this group and no one's done anything to find out who they are, where's the money coming from. No one's been indicted. They're just free to kind of hurt people and wreck our cities. Is that weird to you? It's very weird. And I don't think it would be very difficult to track them down. Look where the finances are going. Look who's donating to these things. I mean, they do tax audits all the time. But why aren't they a designated terror organization? Because unlike the Proud Boys, the January 6th prisoners, they actually killed a bunch of people and destroyed a bunch of cities. So it wouldn't be too hard to spend some time finding out who they are, but we've spent none that I know of. Do you know differently? I think I've seen maybe a handful of them get arrested and they've been in conservative run states like Texas or Florida. But other than that, I haven't seen any of them arrested for the January 6th because believe it or not, there was Antifa January 6th. I'm aware. New York, haven't seen any of those. New York, you only see conservatives essentially being arrested for defending themselves. You see Daniel Penny, for instance, who was protecting the subway and you see malicious prosecutions, but you don't see justified prosecutions of people who are burning these cities. It's all distressing. I do think that looking back when people's brains clear, and hopefully it won't be too late at that point, what happened to you, your response to what happened to you, your trial, the aftermath, all of it will be seen as a really significant moment in American history. And I just hope that you're able to live a life fully in this country despite what happened. Well, thank you, Tucker. I appreciate it. Kyle Rittenhouse, great to see you and congrats on the book. Thank you, Tucker.