Kyle Rittenhouse, the teen who shot dead two men and injured another during anti-racism protests in Kenosha, Wisconsin, in 2020, has announced the formation of a group to fund lawsuits against reporters – and also Whoopi Goldberg.
In November, after a controversial trial, Rittenhouse was found not guilty on all charges related to the shootings, which he carried out with an assault rifle while purportedly providing security in the protest-racked city.
He has since emerged as a rightwing celebrity. He spoke to Tucker Carlson on Fox News on Monday night.
“Me and my team have decided to launch the Media Accountability Project,” Rittenhouse said, “as a tool to help fundraise and hold the media accountable for the lies they say and deal with them in court”.
Carlson asked if “like the Covington Catholic kids” – high-schoolers from Kentucky who became embroiled in controversial events on the National Mall in Washington in 2019 – “you will be suing news organisations that maliciously lie about people who are in the news?”
“Yes, sir,” Rittenhouse said. “We’re going to be holding them accountable, Tucker.”
Rittenhouse, 19, repeatedly drank from a water bottle and added: “I don’t want to see anybody else have to deal with what I went through. So I want to hold them accountable for what they did to me, because I don’t want to see anybody have to go through what I went through.”
Carlson asked if Rittenhouse had any particular targets.
“Well,” he said, “right now we’re looking at quite a few politicians, celebrities, athletes. Whoopi Goldberg is on the list. She called me a murderer, after I was acquitted by a jury of my peers.”
Goldberg, a co-host of The View on ABC, said of Rittenhouse: “Even all the excuses in the world does not change the fact that three people got shot. Two people were murdered. To me it’s murder. I’m sorry.”
