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Joe Biden is facing heavy scrutiny following Chris Wallace’s question to Trump on whether he would denounce white supremacists and militias, lumping a hateful ideology in with many people who are simply expressing their Second Amendment rights, according to the Western Journal.
“Are you willing tonight,” Wallace said, “to condemn white supremacists and militia group and to say that they need to stand down and not add to the violence in a number of these cities as we saw in Kenosha and as we’ve seen in Portland?”
As Wallace’s voice mentions Kenosha, an image of Kyle Rittenhouse flashes across the screen of Biden’s video.
“There’s no other way to put it: the President of the United States refused to disavow white supremacists on the debate stage last night,” the caption of the tweet reads.
There’s no other way to put it: the President of the United States refused to disavow white supremacists on the debate stage last night. pic.twitter.com/Q3VZTW1vUV
— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) September 30, 2020
Rittenhouse is now being charged with first-degree homicide, though he argues that he was acting in self-defense.
He is a 17-year-old who’s accused of shooting three people, two of them fatally.
L. Lin Wood, one attorney on the team, confirmed that a “formal demand for public retraction is being prepared for” the Biden campaign.
Formal demand for public retraction is being prepared for Biden/Harris Campaign on behalf of Kyle Rittenhouse.
I also hereby demand that @JoeBiden immediately retract his false accusation that Kyle is a white supremacist & militia member responsible for violence in Kenosha. pic.twitter.com/GrZyE8nI7Z
— Lin Wood (@LLinWood) September 30, 2020
Biden must “immediately retract his false accusation that Kyle is a white supremacist & militia member responsible for violence in Kenosha,” Wood wrote.
Response to Joe Biden's defamatory allegation that my client Kyle Rittenhouse is a "white supremacist" — pic.twitter.com/m2QUJ25rAt
— Marina Medvin 🇺🇸 (@MarinaMedvin) September 30, 2020
Marina Medvin, another member of Rittenhouse’s defense team, characterized Biden’s comments as “defamatory.”
More from The Western Journal:
Biden was quick to take advantage of the dizzying back-and-forth. On Wednesday morning, the candidate’s Twitter account posted a video attacking Trump for his response to the question.
The clip plays Wallace’s attempt to get Trump to denounce white supremacists and right-wing militias over footage from 2017’s Unite the Right rally and images from this year’s civil unrest.
No clear evidence has emerged that Rittenhouse, whose legal battle over the killings is just now beginning, is a white supremacist or that he came to Kenosha to kill protesters.
Rittenhouse, Medvin asserted, came to the protests with a medic kit, and was actively looked to assist injured protesters.
— Advertisement — Unless Biden wants the country to assume he operates under a presumed-guilty-until-proven-innocent mindset, a public retraction and a sincere apology are looking like the candidate’s best bet going forward.
