Trump Refuses to Condemn Kyle Rittenhouse Over Alleged Murders, Implies Shootings Were Justified: ‘He Probably Would Have Been Killed’

President Donald Trump condemned Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden for falsely labeling rioting and looting as “peaceful protests” and then, minutes later, he dodged direct questions from the press and refused to condemn 17-year-old Kyle Rittenhouse, a Trump supporter who allegedly killed two protestors in Kenosha last week while illegally possessing an assault-style rifle.

During his Monday White House press briefing, Trump repeatedly assailed Biden as supposedly mischaracterizing left-wing protest groups like Black Lives Matter out of partisan allegiance, but then he did the same when pressed about numerous example of far right violence and vigilantism in recent protests.

CNN White House correspondent Kaitlan Collins called out his supporters’ violence in her question and connected it back to his condemnation of Biden.

“You were just criticizing Joe Biden saying he didn’t mention the far left of antifa, in your speech today you said you wanted to talk about left-wing political violence,” Collins noted, alluding to video of Trump-flag-waving truck caravans aggressive driving into crowds of protestors as well as offensively shooting paintball guns and pepper spray at bystanders. “But I noticed you do not mention that your supporters were also in Portland this weekend, firing paintball guns at people some form of pepper spray, you also want to take the chance to condemn what your supporters did in Portland?”

“I understand they had large numbers of people that were supporters but that was a peaceful protest,” Trump claimed, refusing to acknowledge the obvious violence seen on the videos. “Paint is a defensive mechanism. Paint is not bullets. Your supporters, your supporters and they are your supporters, indeed, and they shot a young gentleman and killed him. Not with paint, but with a bullet. And I think it’s disgraceful. These people protested peacefully, they went in very peacefully.”

“When these people turn that on and they see that, they say this is not our country. That was a peaceful protest, totally,” Trump again claimed.

“What about someone accused of killing two people?” Collins pressed, referencing the alleged murders by Kyle Rittenhouse, a teenager from Illinois who drove across state lines to allegedly defend a business and who then killed two protestors and walked through police lines afterward.

Trump tried to move on to another questions, but Collins continued to dog him, as he raised his hand in exasperation to quite her. When she finally relented, the next reporter picked up her follow-up question.

“Are you going to condemn the actions of vigilantes like Kyle Rittenhouse?”

“We’re are looking at all of that,” a suddenly circumspect Trump said, before implying that Rittenhouse was somehow justified in killing the two people by acting in self-defense. “That was an interesting situation. You saw the same tape as I saw and he was trying to get away from them I guess, it looks like, and he fell on then they very violently attacked him and it was something that we are looking at right now and it’s under investigation, but I guess he was in very big trouble. He probably would’ve been killed. It’s under investigation.”

“Do you think private citizens should be taking guns out…?” the reporter pressed.

“I think everything should be taken care of with law enforcement, but we have to give our cops back, our police back their dignity,” Trump said in response. He then offered sympathy for police officers when they “make a mistake,” claiming that they sometimes “choke” in dangerous situations and “sometimes they make the wrong decision.”

“They make the wrong decision, you know if they make a wrong decision and the other direction, they’re probably dead so they choke and that goes on the evening news for weeks and the tens of thousands of great things they do, nobody covers that,” Trump added. “But they choke. The timing and they go through this and they study this and work on it all the time, they have a quarter of a second to make some of these decisions and they make the wrong decision that is very devastating but I will say this, I honor law enforcement.

He then again blamed a “horrible left-wing ideology” for demonizing and highlighting the deadly errors of law enforcement before abruptly wrapping up the press conference.

Watch the video above, via Fox News.