Less than 12 hours after his initial post on X, Kyle Rittenhouse took back his comment saying he was going to write in Ron Paul because “Trump was not pro-gun enough.”
“Hi, I’m Kyle Rittenhouse, outreach director for Texas Gun Rights. A lot of people are upset that I said that I am going to be writing in Ron Paul for President of the United States, and that is true. I will be writing in Ron Paul,” Rittenhouse posted in a video on his X account.
Rittenhouse continued his video by explaining his reasoning for not backing Donald Trump for president.
“Unfortunately, Donald Trump had bad advisors making him bad on the Second Amendment and that is my issue. If you can not be completely uncompromisable on the Second Amendment, I will not vote for you and I will write somebody else in,” Rittenhouse vowed. “We need champions for the Second Amendment or our rights will be eaten away and eroded each day. I support my decision and I have no takebacks.”
Rittenhouse commented on the post, “You must stand by your principles.”
He then made another post saying “No compromise means no compromise.”
However, less than 12 hours later, Rittenhouse pinned a new post to the top of his X account claiming he had talked to Trump’s team and was taking back his comments.
“Over the past 12 hours, I’ve had a series of productive conversations with members of the Trump’s team and I am confident he will be the strong ally gun owners need to defend our Second Amendment rights,” Rittenhouse said.
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“My comments made last night were ill-informed and unproductive. I’m 100% behind Donald Trump and encourage every gun owner to join me in helping send him back to the White House,” he continued.
Ron Paul is a retired politician who served as the U.S. representative for Texas’s 22nd congressional district from 1975 to 1977 and again from 1979 to 1985, as well as for Texas’s 14th congressional district from 1997 to 2013, according to his biography on the Congress website.
Rittenhouse made national headlines after he fatally shot two people and injured a third person during the second night of civil unrest in Kenosha on Aug. 25, 2020.
His attorneys argued that the then-17-year-old was acting in self-defense after being attacked from behind when he shot Gaige Grosskreutz, 27, Joseph Rosenbaum, 36, and Anthony Huber, 26 in the riots following the police shooting of a 29-year-old Black man, Jacob Blake. Rosenbaum and Huber died.
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Jurors in Kenosha, Wisconsin, declared Rittenhouse not guilty on all counts back in 2021. Rittenhouse would have faced a mandatory life sentence if found guilty and convicted of first-degree intentional homicide.
President Biden claimed he “didn’t watch the trial” but stands by “what the jury has concluded.”
“While the verdict in Kenosha will leave many Americans feeling angry and concerned, myself included, we must acknowledge that the jury has spoken. I ran on a promise to bring Americans together, because I believe that what unites us is far greater than what divides us,” Biden said in a previous statement following the verdict. “I know that we’re not going to heal our country’s wounds overnight, but I remain steadfast in my commitment to do everything in my power to ensure that every American is treated equally, with fairness and dignity, under the law.”
He added that “violence and destruction of property have no place in our democracy.”
Fox News’ Audrey Conklin, Jiovanni Lieggi and Peter Doocy contributed to this report.
