Nancy Grace defended her Sunday night Fox Nation special on Kyle Rittenhouse’s homicide trial Monday morning, telling TheWrap the situation is “a conundrum” likely to result in a hung jury — which is why she didn’t take a side. The usually-opinionated television host trended on Twitter Monday as critics piled on from the left and the right, both sides angry she didn’t toe a party line.
“Usually I do [pick a side] and it’s interesting… if I come down on one side, the other side goes crazy. I’m very rarely on the fence,” Grace told TheWrap by phone.
She went on, “I am not going to try to appease any group or anybody by twisting the truth. The truth is it’s a conundrum and if it’s not clear, then it’s not clear. I’m not going to allow politics to get into a criminal case or an assessment of crime. I’m not going to whore out Lady Justice to make one side of the other happy. That is not going to happen on my watch.”
Last August, Rittenhouse crossed state lines into Kenosha, Wisconsin, where he shot three and killed two people amid ongoing protests against police brutality and systemic racism. The 17-year-old Illinois teenager and self-described militia member was arrested and charged with murder.
In her special Sunday, Grace posited that two things could be true at once. Rittenhouse, she said, could have been a “teen vigilante” who crossed state lines with a weapon “looking for trouble” and have acted in self-defense.
Closing arguments in the trail are set to begin Monday.
There are other hot-button issues for which Grace is much more willing to openly declare support. On Wednesday, she will present a law enforcement officer with the “Back the Blue” award at Fox Nation’s annual Patriot Awards and she told TheWrap she is happy to honor police, “some of the most honorable people” she has ever met.
“I’m also looking forward to being with everybody, all my friends at Fox, because after the pandemic, we’ve all been separated and I don’t get to see them very much. A lot of people work from home studios — aways a scattered around the country and around the world — and I’ll get to actually be with some of them and get to be with law enforcement and I’ll get to be with some real heroes. That doesn’t happen every day,” she said.