Rittenhouse revealed: the Tucker Carlson interview
A lot of people thought Kyle Rittenhouse shouldn’t give an interview at all at this point, and especially not to Tucker Carlson. After all, Carlson has gotten a lot of flak for his supposed extremism and in particular for his recent January 6th documentary “Patriot Purge.” Kyle doesn’t owe anybody anything, the argument against the interview goes, and he should just relax and enjoy himself.
But for whatever reason, Rittenhouse decided to do the interview, and I think the reason is similar to the reason he testified in his own defense at his trial: he wants to dispel the lies about him, and he thinks the best way to do this is to show people who he really is rather than the portrait of a hateful and hating killer that the MSM has been presenting and continues to present even today, when it is clear to anyone who paid attention to the evidence and the trial that he is nothing of the sort.
I watched the interview last night. (I can’t find the whole thing on video or I would post it, but here’s a link to the first segment.) I’ve been a Rittenhouse defender since last August 2020 when the videos came out and it became glaringly obvious that he was being attacked by a mob and acted in self defense. And I was already mightily impressed by his intelligence and integrity on the witness stand.
I was almost equally impressed by Rittenhouse’s TV interview, which demonstrated not only his essential goodness, but also his intelligence and remarkable ability (especially in one so young, or really in anyone) to sum a matter up succinctly and clearly.
It also showed his likabilty, at least to my mind. Just to take one example, here Kyle describes part of his experience while in jail (he was there for 87 days):
That’s an example of the fact that actually getting to know the real Rittenhouse can change people’s perceptions from negative to positive.
So why is the left still lying about Rittenhouse and painting him as a vicious ogre? One reason is that they can’t really afford to turn back now and declare how wrong they were. Not only would that expose their previous game, but it would encourage their listeners to generally doubt them in the future. It might even lead to a certain amount of red-pilling among their listeners, and they can’t risk that.
So they keep doubling down in hope that their listeners don’t listen to other news sources that might correct the record, including the trial itself and what was revealed during its course. The MSM mostly showed the portion of the trial featuring the mendacious prosecution, in order to buttress their preferred perspective.
From the start, the MSM used Kyle’s photo with the rifle as support for that message. The photo fit the stereotype – young white punk who loves guns and is out to kill blacks (whether or not he killed black people is irrelevant – after all, it was a BLM “protest,” right?). Armed (as it were) with the photo, the media created a fictional persona to go with it. They love the uses to which this creation can be put, and so they will not relinquish it.
I learned from this interview that one of the white “victims” was evidently slinging around the n-word and creeping his fellow “protesters” out. Not sure if it was the child rapist guy.
I know I shouldn’t still be surprised, but I still find it pretty amazing to see how the media attempts to defend the indefensible, to lie and gaslight shamelessly, and continues to defend deranged criminals, vandals, killers, and rapists and attack people who defend themselves from same. It’s truly surreal at times. How can civilization continue when those who seek to tear it down are praised and those that protect it are demonized?
Darrell Brooks, the black rapper/Waukesha car-killer, is an extra-credit reason to double-down on Kyle.
Waukesha is only 36 miles from Kenosha. Coincidence? The media will do its best to downplay Brooks support for BLM and his violent rage towards whites, but most people can grasp Brooks’ likely motivation to run over whites in a Christmas parade as revenge for Kyle’s acquittal.
So let’s trash Kyle more instead.
Poor kid incarcerated 87 days -playing cards. Media could lambast card game as racist since they are totally insane now and make stuff up for “narrative”. Lin Wood…stretching his jail time (a kid!!) for his own enrichment and vanity, providing terrible damning counsel. Bizarro World, so many villains it’s difficult to keep track of them all. A bit of an aside, Waukesha pompom little girl in real rough shape. The outrageous treachery of the corrupt media makes my head spin. I sincerely hope maligning this teen boy backfires bigly. But it likely: won’t.
The only discordant note in the interview with this remarkably composed (as well as completely blameless) young man was struck when he stated, not once but twice, that he was a supporter of BLM. The most charitable explanation is that either he was encouraged to say this by his lawyer or that he is simply too young and still too unworldly to realize how utterly despicable is this terrorist movement (and race-hustling racket), lacking even one redeeming element and responsible for numerous deaths and billions in damage, to say nothing of its deranged (hard-left and black-nationalist) ideology.
j e:
If you actually listened to what he said about BLM, he said he supported their right to peacefully protest. He also said he knew that prosecutors such as Binger often treat poor black people unfairly. That was the sense in which he was speaking. I don’t find it discordant at all, although it certainly can be misinterpreted.
huxley, more like 50 miles to Waukesha from Kenosha; most of an hour to drive it.
Rittenhouse’s point about prosecutorial misconduct is a good one.
Never talk to the media. Never.
Not even the friendly ones like Tucker.
“it certainly can be misinterpreted”…precisely…and let’s be clear it will always be misinterpreted by the narrative crafters who hate Kyle for the whiteness of his skin, the maleness of his body & the love for country & fellow human beings in his heart.
The left desperately wants a skin vs skin war. Every word. Every action. Every photograph they can gather will be used against him & anyone who shares any common characteristic with young Mr Rittenhouse.
John Guilfoyle:
I completely disagree about Rittenhouse, although I agree with the general principle to not talk to the media (as well as to not testify in your own defense).
For Rittenhouse, the net effect is a plus, because of who he is and because of his interview skills. The overriding purpose of showing his reasonableness and likability is achieved. The MSM has already labeled him every bad thing in the book and I don’t think they can hurt him further that way. When he shows his character, he makes THEM out to be liars with nearly every word he speaks.
I have great admiration and respect for Kyle.
From here on out I hope he exercises public silence and allows his attorneys to quietly sue the pants off all the provably culpable defamers.
Now that Rittenhouse has been acquitted, the media would be far better off backing away from their libelous defamation of Rittenhouse.
Yet their ideological fanaticism and heretofore freedom from personal consequence continues to lead them into digging the hole they’re in even deeper. That disconnect from reality will eventually lead to much greater consequences for them, than would otherwise be the case.
“Those the gods would destroy, they first make mad.”
LeClerc:
A good indication of Kyle’s self-control and inability to be stampeded into an ill-advised comment is that Tucker asked him — twice — if he intended to sue the press. He reply both times was something to the effect of “I have good counsel.” Totally neutral. Good job, Rittenhouse!
If you have the stomach, you can see how the Left is reacting to Tucker’s interview with Rittenhouse in the comments to this article in the Washington Post.
I think Joe Biden’s having called Rittenhouse a “white supremacist” might put him ahead of Kamala in their race to the bottom of the polls.
F: I agree that Rittenhouse is one cool, calm and collected young man. He could not have been “prepped” to do that; his solid demeanor must have come from the way he was raised.
huxley, more like 50 miles to Waukesha from Kenosha; most of an hour to drive it.
Kate:
I didn’t guess 36 miles. Give me some credit.
I googled the distance between Waukesha from Kenosha and got 36 miles. I imagine that is as the crow flies. It also said driving was around an hour.
In any event my point is that the cities are close together and I doubt that was a coincidence.
It’s sort of like saying I’m “close to” Greensboro, about fifty miles away, but it’s really a very separate place. Brooks’s behavior might well be related to the Rittenhouse acquittal, and with social media it’s possible this kind of horror could happen just about anywhere.
Neo…obviously we’ll leave this as one of those places we don’t see eye-to-eye but let’s consider:
1. To whom did he prove reasonableness & likability, or need to? The MSM narrative is still being circulated (crossed state lines with a weapon, white supremacist, not self defense if you bring a gun, tears were fake) I believed he was remarkably reasonable, level-headed & likable when I first heard/saw the story. His weapon management skill for a 17-year-old. That he did not shoot anyone other than his attackers. That he rendered aid & reached out immediately to law enforcement. His reasoning for being where he was. Poll your readers…was there a Rittenhouse-doubter among us? Did any of us need to see that?
2. The MSM can only lie…in fact…you’ve probably seen this Jesse Kelly thread https://twitter.com/JesseKellyDC/status/1462105399230963722 — read the whole thing, as they say. Again…poll your readers…Did any one of us need Kyle Rittenhouse to tell us that the MSM is one perpetual big evil lie factory?
He told his side of the story in the courtroom…ill-advisedly or masterfully I’ll leave to the legal experts. Now…leave the rest to lawyers you trust & talk only to your family. Talking to Tucker makes it look like a victory lap…although I do not believe that’s what it is. And he will continue to be misrepresented in the media until he owns the other half of a few media enterprises that young Mr Sandman currently half-owns.
Kate:
Nonetheless, I was not mistaken when I noted the 36 miles distance.
And “very separate places” can be even closer. In New Orleans you can find yourself in a very separate place within a matter of blocks.
Sure, Brooks’ closeness to Kenosha could be a coincidence, just like the Wuhan Institute of Virology, the only BSL-4 lab in all of China, happened to be even closer to Ground Zero of Covid. That could have been a coincidence too.
But I say those would both be pretty strong coincidences and it’s not out of line to point out such “coincidences.”
There’s really no way to know the size of Nick Sandmann’s settlement; I know we’d like to believe it’s bezillions but given the way we apply defamation and slander in this country I’d be surprised. I’ve never seen a reliable source who could say what this number is even approximately, and am happy to be proved wrong.
I didn’t see the interview. But, Neo, if you were impressed by him and you found him intelligent, you should look at his background. You’ll be even more impressed.
He has it really difficult. He wound up finishing high school on-line through a correspondence type program. He worked while doing it. There is much more as to how difficult he had it, but he was doing a good job of triumphing over those difficulties.
I pray he had the opportunity to return to normal anonymity.
Couple of points here:
I don’t see the degree of risk Neo sees in the MSM fessing up. Their believers won’t be red-pilled by the acknowledgments. The believers want to believe, as many still believe, at some level, that Michael Brown had his hands up.
Neo did post something by a believer who said that, until the last couple of days–which was before the verdict–she had believed, among other things, that KR had shot black guys. This is good, but whether skepticism is going to be generally applied is not the same thing.
I note that “white supremacist” is now an opinion, not a factual, objective thing. Good timing, by golly.
KR’s trigger discipline was completely unbelievable. Cops talk about a “mag dump” firing every round in their weapon. The US military took the full auto selector away from their M16. Now it’s semi-auto or “burst” (three founds). Trained, experienced soldiers burn the ammo up under stress.
He could have emptied his weapon in a spasm of finger-twitching at semi-auto in a couple of seconds.
One could take that as him being some kind of super commando or something. Hard to believe of a seventeen year old.
While only a very few of the believers would actually use violence against him, the number which would object is likely pretty small, and the number which would keep their mouths shut if they happen to see him–thus putting him at risk–is also likely pretty small.
Neo: “he wants to dispel the lies about him.”
And he hit a home run with this!
Just like his giving testimony for which I was initially thinking OMG! Don’t!
I thought the same when I heard about this interview – OMG! Don’t!
But, clearly, both times, I underestimated this young man’s ability to get his story out.
I am glad that he did this as I learned a few things from this that I didn’t know before such as how his initial lawyers were using him instead of being HIS advocate. And that he was in jail for 87 days. That is unbelievable that a lawyer would let a client sit in jail for that long. If nothing else, getting a client out of jail and surrounded by loving and supportive family would be in the client’s best interest and mental well being. One doesn’t need a law degree to understand that.
I’m glad he got better legal counsel.
As for winning over people to who he really is. There are those who will be open minded and really listen to him; and there are others who won’t even listen but instead say that he is nothing but a liar. Those people will never be able to see the truth. Their minds are already cemented over to what their truth is that a jackhammer wouldn’t even make a dent.
Two instances of his interview stood out for me. The one is included in the above clip when asked by Tucker if he was going to pursue claims for libel against media. Rittenhouse’s answer to BOTH times was great. (I have good lawyers working on that; and the second time he gave the same answer and smiled/laughed while glancing over to someone off screen) In another clip, when asked about his future the way in which he beamed, just absolutely beamed, a broad smile when he mentioned that he is doing online work for nursing shows how proud he is, and justifiably so, of his achievements. May he always do well!
The MSM used that still photo of him holding a “scary looking” weapon like a kid playing war; but, unlike the prosecutor in his case and many others who are anti-gun Rittenhouse is holding it properly with the barrel pointing down.
The videos and his giving his own testimony on the stand saved the day. Without either of those this case could have been just another person thrown in jail for political gains by the elites.
Chalk this case up as a win for truth – and most importantly a win for Rittenhouse and his family.
Jackson Sparks can never be interviewed by Tucker.
Enjoyed your comment, Charles – thank you
Kyle Rittenhouse is the distillation of what Democrats today abhor – white male, probably straight, low SES, but innocent and well spoken and NOT DUMB. Oh, and smart enough to get rid of bad lawyers and replace with good lawyers.
He must be driving them insane,
@Jeanne:
They were already insane.
But he’s causing them psychic pain. This is a Good Start.
I made a donation to Kyle’s defense fund (run by his mother) at
https://www.freekyleusa.org/
Any surplus is to be used to pay off his college loans.
Although I don’t think I bear any responsibility for it, I feel bad about how Kenosha, Democrats, the Left and his country f’d him over!
@zaphod – yes indeed, our democrat friends will be well served by generous helpings of psychic pain dispensed by Kyle Rittenhouse. Exploding heads are just the thing sometimes.
Does anyone remember hearing the story of why Kyle changed lawyers (other than them leaving him in jail !! but maybe that was enough) and how Richards (a Democrat!!) got the case?
I missed that somewhere.
FWIW, I listened to half of the Barnes & Frei video (and totally agree with F – I have a life!), and Robert thought the decision to let Tucker film Kyle during the trial was a serious danger that could have had negative legal repercussions at the time, but also in the case of a mistrial.
To Carlson’s credit, his crew did not leak, but I believe the lawyer on this one. It was perhaps not the wisest thing to do at the time, but worked out okay in the event.
And while I agree that Kyle is amazingly self-possessed and intelligent as an interviewee, I also wonder what’s on Tucker’s cutting room floor.
@ Neo > “From the start, the MSM used Kyle’s photo with the rifle as support for that message.”
Our good friends at Bookworm Room discussed that nefarious meming. Book posted the leftists’ version (with scathing commentary) …
https://www.bookwormroom.com/2021/11/20/a-meme-sums-up-90-of-the-lefts-kyle-rittenhouse-lies/
… and a commenter responded with the tl;dr rebuttal.
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/63728f91d681963d1a3ca27875779251aa72fdecdf2610b421731ebd108e43c0.jpg?w=800&h=640
“Rittenhouse revealed”?
OK, but to provide some “balance”, here’s…
“Rittenhouse reviled”…
along with his country and its citizens:
https://twitter.com/Lauren_Southern/status/1463203103943970821?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1463211207595286528%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es3_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fblazingcatfur.ca%2F
It’s awful and it’s ugly. But one needs to know.
And it’s entirely possible that unless “Biden” and his utterly corrupt Media supporters don’t pull back, i.e., don’t dial it down a notch—much, much more than a notch, actually—then the country may well have reached the tipping point.
OTOH, what I just said is nonsense, since I firmly believe that “Biden” wishes to push us over that tipping point.
It’s manufactured crises one after the other all the way down…until “Biden” decides it’s time to declare a national emergency—because of those crises (caused, of course, by Trump and those who support him).
Who knows what the last straw might be? Protesting Covid? Protesting inflation? The race war that “Biden” is drooling over with anticipation, this latter being the perfect excuse…”to protect the USA from those RACIST, Deplorable Trumpists who aim to destroy it!!!”…and amplified by the criminal media to the nth degree.