Kyle Rittenhouse dubbed 'worst fake crier since Brett Kavanaugh' after breaking down on the stand at homicide trial

Kyle Rittenhouse, who fatally shot two people and wounded another during heated protests in Kenosha, Wisconsin in August 2020, is presently on trial for homicide. Rittenhouse has maintained that he acted in self-defense — and he is being slammed on social media for breaking down in tears on the witness stand.

The Summer of 2020 was a time of severe political unrest in the United States, from the murder of George Floyd by police officer Derek Chauvin in Minneapolis on May 25 to a bitter presidential race to the COVID-19 pandemic. Kenosha was rocked by intense protests not only because of Floyd's death, but also, because Jacob Blake, a 29-year-old African-American man, was — like Floyd — injured by a white police officer. Two of the protesters were Anthony Huber, who knew Blake, and 36-year-old Joseph Rosenbaum. Rittenhouse fatally shot Rosenbaum and Huber, but a third protester he shot, Gaige Grosskreutz, survived.

Rittenhouse, who was 17 at the time and is now 18, went to Kenosha from Antioch, Illinois during the protests, fully armed and claiming that he was there to protect businesses. While many pundits in the right-wing media have defended Rittenhouse, his critics view him as a far-right, out-of-control vigilante who acted as judge, jury and executioner.

At his trial, Rittenhouse described the confrontations during his testimony before breaking down in tears — and some Twitter users unfavorably compared him to U.S. Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh. During his Senate confirmation hearings in 2018, Kavanaugh became both angry and tearful while vehemently denying that he tried to rape Christine Blasey Ford (now a psychology professor at Palo Alto University) at a party back in 1982. Despite the sexual abuse allegations from Ford and other women, Kavanaugh was confirmed by the U.S. Senate.

Rittenhouse's critics tweeted: