Kyle Rittenhouse Does a 180 and Endorses Trump After Deluge of Hate Messages from the MAGAverse

Screenshot/X

Kyle Rittenhouse endorsed former President Donald Trump on Friday after being deluged with hate messages following an earlier announcement he would write in former Rep. Ron Paul on his 2024 ballot.

The 21-year-old , who was tried and acquitted in the shooting deaths of two men during a wave of civil unrest in Kenosha, Wisconsin, in 2020, had called Trump “bad” on gun rights and vowed not to vote for him in a post on X (formerly Twitter).

But after half a day of receiving hate messages and facing accusations of treason, the Second Amendment advocate announced he had pivoted and would support Trump’s third White House bid. Rittenhouse tweeted:

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. 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.

The sudden about-face followed a torrent of attacks launched against Rittenhouse, who met with Trump after he was acquitted in 2021. Many of those attacks were from accounts that had accused Rittenhouse of being disloyal to Trump’s MAGA movement.

In his initial remarks about his inability to support Trump, Rittenhouse said, “If you cannot be completely un-compromisable on the Second Amendment, I will not vote for you.

He added, “We need champions for the Second Amendment or our rights would be eaten away and eroded each day.”