Wendy Rittenhouse, mother of 18-year-old Kyle Rittenhouse — who is on trial for fatally shooting two men during Kenosha, Wisconsin, riots — says that President Joe Biden “defamed” her son by suggesting that the teen was a white supremacist.
The Kenosha riots erupted following the police shooting of Jacob Blake.
During Wednesday’s proceedings, a tearful Kyle insisted that he acted in self-defense after feeling cornered by one of the victims.
What are the details?
Wendy appeared on Fox News’ “Hannity” on Thursday night, where she called out Biden for wrongly intimating that Kyle was a white supremacist.
In 2020, then-presidential candidate Biden tweeted images of Kyle and slapped then-President Donald Trump for ignoring what the Democrat said was “white supremacy.” In the tweet’s caption, Biden suggested that white supremacists were partially responsible for the violence that unfolded during the protests.
“There’s no other way to put it: The President of the United States refused to disavow white supremacist on the debate stage last night,” Biden wrote at the time.
Wendy told Fox host Sean Hannity that she was furious when she saw Biden’s tweet.
“When I saw that, I was shocked,” she said. “I was angry. President Biden don’t know my son whatsoever, and he’s not a white supremacist. He’s not a racist. And [Biden] did that for the votes. And I was so angry for a while at him and what he did to my son. He defamed him.”
Wendy told Fox host Sean Hannity that her son still has nightmares about the incident and that the 18-year-old still has a “lot of healing to do.”
Hannity later asked Wendy if she believes her son is receiving a fair trial thus far.
“The judge is very fair,” she said. “The people that I talked to that lived in Kenosha all their lives, they told me that Judge Schroeder is a very fair judge and he doesn’t allow no nonsense in his courtroom.”
What else is there to know?
Kyle’s defense rested its case on Thursday, and closing arguments are set to begin on Nov. 15.
Kyle was charged with two counts of homicide for shooting 36-year-old Joseph Rosenbaum and 26-year-old Anthony Huber during the riots. Gaige Grosskreutz, a surviving third person Kyle shot, testified on Monday.
Kyle was also charged with possession of a weapon by a person under 18, as well as multiple counts of reckless endangerment.
You can read more about the case’s latest developments here.