Former President Donald Trump offered his opinion of Kyle Rittenhouse on Tuesday with Fox News' Sean Hannity after meeting with the teen at Mar-A-Lago.
Trump opined the teen had been a subject of "prosecutorial misconduct" in his trial on charges of shooting three men, killing two, during civil unrest in Wisconsin.
"[Rittenhouse] should not have had to suffer through a trial for that. He was going to be dead if he didn't pull that trigger, that guy that put the gun to his head in one-quarter of a second he was going to pull the trigger. Kyle would have been dead," Trump said.
Rittenhouse did a sit-down interview with Tucker Carlson in which he also talked about prosecutorial misconduct.
"I believe there's a lot of prosecutorial misconduct not just in my case but in other cases," he said. "It's just amazing to see how much a prosecutor can take advantage of somebody. If they did this to me, imagine what they could have done to a person of color who doesn't maybe have the resources I do or is not widely publicized like in my case."
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Trump went on during the FOX broadcast to blame what happened to Rittenhouse on Democrats.
"He's a really good young guy … just left Mar-a-Lago a little while ago, and he should never have been put through that. That was prosecutorial misconduct, and it's happening all over the United States right now with the Democrats," Trump said.
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Trump went on to blame the media for portraying certain aspects of Rittenhouse's story in a way that he felt was incorrect.
"They are the enemy of the people, and we could have a country that would be able to heal and get together, except the media foments it. They're so corrupt. The fake news [media], but it's really the corrupt news. It's corrupt what they do," Trump said. "I had to devote a lot of time to fake investigations."
Despite the notoriety he's currently experiencing, Rittenhouse's defense attorney, Mark Richards, has advised him to continue his life quietly and even "change his name."
Richards noted that those offering the 18-year-old congressional internships are not looking out for his best interest, but instead trying to use him.
As of now, Rittenhouse has not made his plans for the future known.
