Kyle Rittenhouse liked the policies of Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang, he has revealed - describing him as 'a good dude' - but said he went to a Trump rally because he knew the former president backed the police.
Rittenhouse, 18, spoke to Fox News host Tucker Carlson for an interview on Sunday, the majority of which was broadcast during primetime on Monday.
Rittenhouse was acquitted on Friday by a court in Wisconsin for his shooting dead of two protesters in August 2020, during Black Lives Matter riots in the city of Kenosha.
On Wednesday, the channel aired more footage from Carlson's interview with the teenager, during which the two discussed politics.
He said he was 'not a political person' but had watched Yang's campaign with interest as he ran for the Democratic presidential nomination in early 2020.
'I was a pretty big Andrew Yang supporter before all this,' Rittenhouse said.
'I was part of the Yang gang. He's a good dude.'
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Kyle Rittenhouse told Tucker Carlson, in a clip from their interview aired on Wednesday night, that he was attracted to Democrat Andrew Yang's candidacy during the 2020 election
Andrew Yang is pictured calling for an end to racist attacks on Asians in New York City in March 2021. Yang was the first Democrat to drop out of the primary, in February 2020
Rittenhouse, who insisted throughout his 19-day trial in Kenosha that he was in the city that night to prevent the destruction of his father's hometown, and acted in self defense when he opened fire, said he paid little attention to the 2020 campaign.
'I wasn't into politics,' he told Carlson.
'I didn't know much about Trump. I didn't know much about Biden.
'I went to a Trump rally because Trump supports the police. That's what I liked about Trump. I didn't know much about politics. I was just a 17-year-old kid.
'I liked Andrew Yang. I liked his policy little bit. Very intelligent.'
Yang was the first of 13 Democratic contenders to drop out of the primary, ending his long-shot campaign in February 2020. He went on to run unsuccessfully in the Democrat primary for mayor of New York, and, after dropping out, announced in October of this year that he had quit the Democratic party and was now an independent.
Rittenhouse on Tuesday met Trump at his Mar-a-Lago estate, the former president revealed.
Trump told Sean Hannity that the teenager was 'a fan' of his.
'Kyle called. He wanted to know if he could come over, because he's a fan,' Trump said on Fox News Channel on Tuesday night.
Donald Trump met Kyle Rittenhouse on Tuesday, with the teenager traveling from his Illinois
