Conservative pundit Ann Coulter was forced by Twitter to delete a tweet in which she praised Kyle Rittenhouse, the 17-year-old shooter who killed two protesters during demonstrations following the police-perpetrated shooting of Jacob Blake in Kenosha, Wisconsin.
Coulter had shared a tweet from another user that said they wanted Rittenhouse to be their bodyguard.
Quoting that tweet, Coulter took it a step further. “I want him as my president,” she said.
Later on, Coulter deleted the tweet. A spokesperson from Twitter, speaking to Salon, informed the publication that the company had forced her to remove the post as it had violated rules for the social media platform.
“The tweet glorified violence, specifically condoning an act of violence that may be replicable by a civilian,” the spokesperson explained.
Coulter isn’t the only far right media personality to receive backlash for commending Rittenhouse this week. On Wednesday evening, Fox News’s Tucker Carlson defended the 17-year-old, suggesting that Rittenhouse’s actions were noble.
“How shocked are we that 17-year-olds with rifles decided they had to maintain order when no one else would?” Carlson said on his program.
The comments from the Fox News host on Wednesday prompted a number of individuals to call for Carlson’s firing from the network.
Rittenhouse was formally charged on Thursday afternoon with first-degree intentional homicide, first-degree reckless homicide and attempted first-degree intentional homicide. He was also charged with first-degree recklessly endangering safety, as well as receiving a misdemeanor charge of possession of a dangerous weapon by a person under the age of 18.
The teen, who is from Antioch, Illinois, traveled to Kenosha on Tuesday night and interacted frequently with local law enforcement, who did not bother to check his age while he was handling an AR-15-style rifle. Indeed, local cops actually thanked Rittenhouse for being there before he shot three individuals, and permitted him to pass by even as witnesses told police he had just shot someone.
Police Chief Daniel Miskinis appeared to place the blame on the victims themselves for their own deaths and injuries.
“Everybody involved was out after the curfew. I’m not going to make a great deal of it, but the point is — the curfew is in place to protect,” Miskinis said. “Had persons not been out involved in violation of that, perhaps the situation that unfolded would not have happened.”
Because of Miskinis’s comments, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) called for the police chief’s immediate resignation.
Miskinis’s actions, as well as those of Kenosha County Sheriff David Beth, “uphold and defend white supremacy, while demonizing people who were murdered for exercising their first amendment rights and speaking out against police violence,” ACLU of Wisconsin Executive Director Chris Ott said in a statement.
One Day Left: All gifts to Truthout now matched!
From now until the end of the year, all donations to Truthout will be matched dollar for dollar! Thanks to a generous supporter, your one-time gift today will be matched immediately. As well, your monthly donation will be matched for the whole first year, doubling your impact.
We have just one day left to reach our goals: raising $40,000 in one-time gifts and adding 570 new monthly donors.
This matching gift comes at a critical time. Trump has made it no secret that he is planning a demolition-style attack on both specific communities and democracy as a whole, beginning on his first day in office.
Help us prepare for Trump’s Day One, and have your donation matched today!