'He's a Fan': Trump Says He Palled Around With Rittenhouse at Mar-a-Lago

Peter Wade / Rolling Stone
'He's a Fan': Trump Says He Palled Around With Rittenhouse at Mar-a-Lago Kyle Rittenhouse appears in court for a motion hearing in Kenosha, Wis., on Friday, Sept. 17, 2021. (photo: AP)

“Just left Mar-a-Lago a little while ago and he should never have been put through that. That was prosecutorial misconduct,” the former president said

Donald Trump wasted no time inviting Kyle Rittenhouse to his resort at Mar-a-Lago. The former president appeared in a Fox News interview Tuesday night in which he revealed that the teen and his mother met with him, mere days after he was acquitted of homicide and other charges for shooting three people, killing two, at a racial justice protest in Kenosha, Wisconsin.

“I got to know him a little bit,” Trump said. “He called, he wanted to know if he could come over and say hello. He was a fan. He came over with his mother. That was prosecutorial misconduct. He should not have had to suffer through a trial like that. He was going to be dead. … He’s a really good, young guy. He’s 18 years old. Just left Mar-a-Lago a little while ago.”

Donald Trump Jr. posted an image of the meeting on Twitter. “GOATs,” he wrote.

Trump also cheered when the teen — who has been photographed flashing an “OK” white power sign with the Proud Boys — was acquitted. “If that’s not self defense, nothing is!” he wrote in a statement.

Rittenhouse appeared in a Tuesday night interview as well, on NewsNation Now with Ashleigh Banfield. He said that when he flashed a white power sign, he didn’t know what the sign meant. He also blamed his attorneys for introducing him to the Proud Boys.

“I didn’t know that the ‘OK’ hand sign was a symbol for white supremacy, just as I didn’t know that those people in the bar were Proud Boys,” he said. “They were set up by my former attorney who was fired for putting me in situations like that with people I don’t agree with.”

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