President Biden says he stands by Rittenhouse verdict, later adds he is ‘angry and concerned’

President Joe Biden said on Friday that he and many other Americans feel “angry and concerned” about the acquittal of Kyle Rittenhouse for killing two men and wounding one other.

Biden has also asked for people to “abide by” the jury’s verdict in Kenosha, Wisconsin, and called for calm. Speaking with reporters, Joe Biden declined to directly answer questions about whether he stands by his labeling of Kyle Rittenhouse, 18, as a white supremacist.

During last year’s presidential election, Joe Biden on Twitter criticized former President Trump for refusing to condemn anti-Black Lives Matters protestors as “white supremacists.” The tweet included a video that showed an image of Kyle Rittenhouse’s face. “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,” Joe Biden wrote in September 2020.

Republicans, including Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas, have demanded Biden apologize for suggesting Kyle Rittenhouse was a white supremacist. “Joe Biden needs to publicly apologize to Kyle Rittenhouse,” Mr. Cotton wrote on Twitter.

Jen Psaki did not answer this question when asked directly about it. “What I’m not going to speak to right now is an ongoing trial nor the president’s past comments. What I can reiterate for you is the president’s view that we shouldn’t have, broadly speaking, vigilantes patrolling our communities with assault weapons,” she said.

Kyle Rittenhouse’s mother said earlier this month that Joe Biden “defamed” her son, telling Fox News that he is not a white supremacist or a racist. “I was in shock. I was angry. President Biden doesn’t know my son, whatsoever,” Wendy Rittenhouse said to Fox News’s Sean Hannity. “He did that for the votes. I was so angry for a while at him and what he did to my son.”

Kyle Rittenhouse was found not guilty on all three charges related to his shooting of three men while fleeing a group of attackers.