Fox News anchor Chris Wallace took on Fox News contributor Katie Pavlich for saying vigilante justice was filling the void for a lack of policing on Thursday’s broadcast of FNC’s “Outnumbered.”
The panel was discussing 17-year-old Kyle Rittenhouse being arrested after two people were shot to death during the third night of protests in Kenosha.
Pavlich said, “You are making a choice as a leader not to stop riots at the beginning. There are resources to help you do that. The Wisconsin governor rejected, according to the White House chief of staff, additional resources and National Guard before the most horrific night we’ve seen this week in Kenosha. This is a choice that they are making not to stop the violence initially.”
She continued, “I have to say on the argument of vigilante justice when you have no police around to defend businesses and people who are being attacked, and their livelihoods burned to the ground, then there is a void that is filled. You have to ask yourself when resources are offered at the beginning of when these riots break out and rejected by Democratic leaders over and over again. You have to ask the question, why?”
She added, “This is a pattern of behavior, not just now. You’ll remember, in Baltimore a couple of years ago, when the mayor said she gave the “protesters room to destroy,” and they completely went through the city and ruined everything, This is a pattern of behavior which Democratic leaders are not capable of defending their cities and the people who live within them.”
Following a commercial break, Wallace said, “I’ve got to push back on something we said at the end of the last segment because there seemed to be the implication that somehow vigilante justice was understandable or justified by the lack of sufficient police action and authority and presence in some of these cities.”
He continued, “Just as it is fair to say that rioting and looting is a completely inappropriate response to George Floyd or Jacob Blake, vigilante justice is a completely inappropriate response to the rioting in the street. There is no justification for what happened in Kenosha, and vigilante justice is a crime and should be punished as a crime.”
Host Harris Faulkner interjected, “We did not say that, and now we have said it. We did not say that before.”
Wallace shot back, “You were saying ‘fill a void’ and I don’t think that’s right.”
Faulkner said, “The one thing that Melissa said is nobody is saying that the right thing to do. But to actually point out that it is, in fact, a crime is the nuance of what Chris Wallace is saying. I feel like we’ve had a complete conversation on that.”
Follow Pam Key on Twitter @pamkeyNEN