The Onion called it with their headline: “Kyle Rittenhouse Sentenced to 45 Years of CPAC Appearances,” published just after Rittenhouse was acquitted of all charges, including homicide, stemming from when he shot and killed two people and injured a third during a racial justice protest in Kenosha, Wisconsin.
Mere hours after the jury announced the not guilty verdicts and The Onion published its not-so-satirical headline, Fox News announced that Tucker Carlson landed an exclusive interview with Rittenhouse, which will almost certainly cement the teen’s place in right-wing culture as a conservative darling and future pundit.
Part of the interview is scheduled to air in primetime on Monday, Nov. 22. It will, naturally, be followed by a Tucker Carlson Originals documentary — complete with bonus footage from the interview and “exclusive behind-the-scenes access to Rittenhouse and his defense team,” per a Fox press release. The documentary is scheduled to air in December on FOX Nation, the channel’s streaming arm. FOX Nation is the same streaming outlet that aired another Tucker Carlson Originals propaganda film, Patriot Purge, that perpetuated the dangerous conspiracy theory that Jan. 6 was a “false flag” operation.
In the wake of the verdict (and, frankly, long before it), conservatives have drooled over Rittenhouse, offering him congressional internships and celebrating the teen who, it bears repeating, shot three people, killing two and injuring another.