CLAY: Let’s go right to Kenosha, Wisconsin. Prosecution and defense are presenting their closing arguments to the jury today and then the jury will have it to determine whether or not Kyle Rittenhouse has committed any crimes at all. We’re joined now by Julio Rosas who’s been covering the Rittenhouse trial in person. He’s a senior writer at Townhall and a U.S. Marine. Julio, thanks for joining us. The thing that I would want to know most — given the fact that you’ve actually been in this courtroom — is so far, we’ve seen the prosecutor, we’ve seen the defense attorneys, we’ve seen Rittenhouse himself and the judge and how they’ve been reacting to the trial.
How would you assess the body language of the jury to the extent you have been able to determine and/or analyze it?
ROSAS: So I haven’t been in the courtroom every day, but in the times that I have it’s actually kind of interesting ’cause mask wearing, you can kind of gauge someone’s political ideology based on if they wear a mask when they don’t have to. So in the courthouse, there’s no mask mandate, so you don’t have to wear a mask. Out of 18 jurors — ’cause there’s alternates.
Out of the 18 jurors, probably about five were wearing masks. But also, it could be they’re trying to hide their identity because there was also concern about people photographed and doxxed. So that could also be a factor too. But in terms of more the body language, when I was in there at times it seemed like… One woman in particular, it just seems like she wasn’t taking any notes. She just kind of was there but she didn’t seem to be paying that much attention.
And some of the other reporters that have been in the courtroom on other days — especially when the prosecution was cross-examining Rittenhouse at the beginning when it was about like an hour into it — according to them, a lot of the jurors didn’t seem to be paying that much attention or weren’t actively taking notes. So I think that highlights that maybe some of the jurors have already made up their minds prior the conclusion of everything, and obviously we’re now approaching the conclusion for the closing arguments.
BUCK: Julio, it’s Buck. I want to know what you’re hearing about security precautions on the ground there. Last week we are telling folks listening here that you had 500 National Guard readied for the verdict, and obviously in Kenosha, you’re in this situation. The trial is happening because of… You were there during the riot, correct?
ROSAS: Yes, that’s correct, and I was there for the second half of the shooting.
BUCK: And so how…? Actually, put a pause on my first question for a second. Tell us more, since you were actually there the night of. How does that inform your view of what you’ve seen play out here in the trial? What are things that you would want people to know? Because obviously the media was lying about the shooting itself, and immediate the aftermath, there was a lot of dishonesty. That’s all come to the forefront now. But just from that night — from the atmospherics, from being close to the actual shooting — what should people know?
ROSAS: All they have to do, Buck, is look at all the videos. You don’t even have to look at every single minute. But if you watch any of the videos that the trial has presented, you will come away with the conclusion that Kyle Rittenhouse shot in self-defense. There’s just no dispute about that if you look at the actual video. And I can tell you, when people haven’t viewed the video because they say he’s a white supremacist murderer and all this other nonsense, he’s an active shooter? I gotta tell you, Buck, I’m not in law enforcement, but I’ve never seen an active shooter voluntarily run towards the police while trying to run away from people who were chasing after him. I mean, that, to me, does not scream “active shooter.”
BUCK: You are a former Marine, so you do understand also situations involving firearms. But keep going. Keep going, Julio.
ROSAS: Thank you. So it’s just… If you look at the video and you look at the eyewitness statements that were happening before the trial, the fact that the dishonesty from the mainstream media is t such a high level is just another searing indictment on how poor the media class is when it comes to covering things that goes against their narrative, and that was their narrative, that —
BUCK: Are you expecting riots if there’s a not-guilty verdict? That’s what I was initially gonna ask you and I did want to pose this to you.
ROSAS: So I… Riots are gonna be hard to predict sometimes. What I will say is it is gonna be warmer this week. Right now, it’s in the lower forties. It’s gonna be in the fifties starting tomorrow and that’s more conducive for crowds to gather and what have you. What I will say is that if there are riots due to Rittenhouse being not guilty on the serious charges, that’s gonna be because, again, in part of the media narrative that they bought into.
Because if you’ve been paying attention to the mainstream media, you would think that this would be a slam dunk for the prosecution. But as the trial has shown — and as I’ve seen watching it here at the courthouse — that has not been the case at all. Even the prosecution’s own witnesses has bolstered Rittenhouse’s claim to self-defense. So there’s, unfortunately, still large part of the American population that have this really distorted, really just untrue view on what happened that night. And I can tell you that because I was there for some of it, and it’s just really, really upsetting that it’s gotten to this point.
CLAY: Julio, I’m still fascinated by the inside the courtroom dynamics ’cause some of those, you can see on television. A lot of the others, you can’t. And what you told us, for instance, about the jurors wearing masks and who’s not, it’s sort of a fascinating window into what their overall life view might be in some sense. What has the reaction been like in the courtroom itself in terms of who is there? Does Rittenhouse have a lot of support? Are there lots of people there in your read that are hoping that Rittenhouse is guilty? What is the actual atmosphere like when you have been in that courtroom?
ROSAS: So for me personally, it’s been a little odd because the last time I saw Rittenhouse in person was the night in question, August 25th. So it’s been kind of like a weird, like, “Oh, hey, you’re the guy that everyone’s been talking about that I saw at that thing.” But no. There has been a mix of people. Right now, the courtroom… From what we can see in the cameras, this has been the most packed I’ve ever seen it.
And I’ve seen members of Huber’s family — Anthony Huber, the second guy that got shot, the skateboard dude — in the courtroom. Some friends and supporters of Anthony Huber were in the courtroom when I was there. And they believe that Kyle Rittenhouse is a murderer and all that.
But at the same time, Rittenhouse’s family — his mom, his sisters, and also just, like, regular citizens, because there is public seating, ’cause this is… Yeah, as high profile as this is, it’s still regular courtroom seating. So this is the most packed that I have personally seen it so far.
CLAY: We were talking about some of the misinformation that’s been out there. A huge percentage of people who follow this case heard that Rittenhouse was a white supremacist, that he was an activist trying to take aim at Black Lives Matter protesters. One of the most jarring parts of this have been the number of people who have only just found out — because of the Drive-By Media — that all three people he shot were white.
Does that surprise you, how well entrenched the mainstream narrative was that this was a white supremacist, and the expectation was that his victims were minorities? Instead… “Victim” is the wrong. The people he shot, because victim is a charged term that actually been banned inside of the courtroom. But the people were shot were white. Does that surprise you in terms of the way that it throws a monkey wrench, so to speak, in the overall narrative here from the left wing?
ROSAS: I mean, yes and no. I mean, I remember waking up in Kenosha the next day, the next morning I got for hours of sleep I’m still trying to process what I’ve been through and trying to figure out what I call saw. And I check Twitter, and I see Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley from the get-go calling him a white supremacist.
CLAY: Yeah.
ROSAS: And I’m just thinking — and I’m just… I remember thinking, like, how is that even possible? ‘Cause I knew from that night that he shot all white people who were actively attacking him. And so I’m thinking, like, “How does this congresswoman from Massachusetts, on the East Coast and not in Kenosha…? What information does she have that I don’t?” And of course, the answer is she didn’t. She’s just jumped the gun on this, and so many others too.
But it just goes to speak again to they have this idea that there can be no wrong done with a Black Lives Matter riot. Because, let’s be clear, the night of August 25th it was a riot, not a protest. They just very much are… They just want to have their narrative because that’s what they are building their audience off of, right? But it’s not true. It’s not correct.
And as much as this trial should not have happened, I’m kind of glad it did because it’s laying all the facts out of what happened that night in painstaking detail. So even if people just even had a cursory glance at the trial, they will know that this is not some active shooter that was trying to kill as many people as possible, ’cause I am telling you there were plenty of opportunities — not just Rittenhouse, but all the other people who were armed — to just start mowing down the rioters, but they didn’t do that.
BUCK: Julio Rosas of Townhall.com on the scene in Kenosha at the courthouse. Julio, great work as always. Thank you for being with us.
ROSAS: Thank you.