Kyle Rittenhouse Confronted by Piers Morgan on Killing Two People

British TV host Piers Morgan confronted Kyle Rittenhouse on the toll killing two people and injuring a third took on him as a young man.

Rittenhouse was 17 years old in August 2020 when he fatally shot two men —Joseph Rosenbaum, 36, and Anthony Huber, 26— and injured a third, Gaige Grosskreutz, 26, in Kenosha, Wisconsin. The shootings took place during the civil unrest that sparked from the death of Jacob Blake, a 29-year-old Black man who was seriously injured after being shot by a cop in Kenosha.

The teen from Antioch, Illinois, was armed with an AR-15-style rifle and a part of a group who said that they were in Kenosha to protect businesses from the riots. Rittenhouse was initially charged with two counts of homicide and one count of attempted homicide, among other charges, but was later acquitted with his defense arguing that he shot the men in self-defense.

On Wednesday night's episode of TalkTV's Piers Morgan Uncensored, Morgan asked Rittenhouse, "You killed two people and you wounded a third. How do you feel about that?" Morgan later told Newsweek via email he was "genuinely curious about how he felt on a human level about taking the lives of two people."

"Well, Piers, they attacked me. They left me with no choice. I have nightmares every night of being attacked and being ambushed and them trying to steal my gun and pointing guns in my face. It's not an easy thing to do, but I did what I had to do to stay alive. And if I didn't, I would be dead," Rittenhouse responded.

Morgan then probed further asking "on a human level" how he feels about the killings, pointing out how young the now 20-year-old was at the time of the shootings.

"I don't think that's an appropriate question to ask how it feels. It's not an easy thing to do. It's something I live with every single day. It's nightmares I have. It's something that I have to deal with. I had to deal with the PTSD and the trauma from having to do that," Rittenhouse replied.

Morgan then asked to take the focus away from Rittenhouse's own emotions and for him to think about the lives he took.

"Right. I mean, it seems to me your emotions are more about you and your trauma because your life is being threatened and that side of it, rather than the question I'm asking, which is simply on a human level, how do you feel about being so young and yet having on the record for the rest of your life now that you took the lives of two people, regardless of the circumstances?" Morgan said.

Rittenhouse replied: "And like I just said, it's something I deal with every day. I deal with the PTSD and the trauma and the nightmares. It's not easy to deal with it."

Newsweek reached out to Rittenhouse via Instagram.

Rittenhouse has been widely accepted by conservatives, meeting with former President Donald Trump and appearing on Fox News' now-defunct show Tucker Carlson Tonight after his acquittal. He is currently on a media tour promoting his controversial book Acquitted, which he described as a "story of survival, resilience, and justice."

Update 11/30/23, 12:27 p.m. ET: This update has been updated with comment from Morgan.