'That's A Sickness': Donald Trump Criticizes Fans Of Shooting Suspect Luigi Mangione
President-elect Donald Trump called the glorification of shooting suspect Luigi Mangione a “sickness,” criticising people who have celebrated the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in New York earlier this month.
“I think it’s really terrible that some people seem to admire him, like him. And I was happy to see that it wasn’t specific to this gentleman that was killed. It’s just an overall sickness as opposed to a specific sickness,” Trump said on Monday during a wide-ranging press conference in Florida.
“It was cold-blooded, just a cold-blooded, horrible killing,” he went on. “And how people can like this guy is — that’s a sickness, actually. That’s really very bad. The way it was done. It was so bad. Right in the back. Very bad.”
Trump also suggested that some of the gleeful online posts about Thompson’s death could be fake, adding that “it’s hard to believe that that could even be thought of, but it seems there’s a certain appetite for him. I don’t get it.”
Mangione, 26, has been charged with murder in Thompson’s killing. He was arrested in Pennsylvania last week and remains in custody there. Police said his fingerprints match prints that investigators found on a water bottle and a granola bar wrapper near the scene of the shooting in Manhattan.
Mangione described his anger toward corporate America in a “manifesto” published last week. Words etched on shell casings at the scene ― “deny,” “defend,” “depose” ― also echoed a phrase commonly used to describe insurer tactics to avoid paying claims.
Some people online have expressed support for Mangione and glee over the death of a top health industry CEO. Others condemned the killing but said the industry deserves the scorn and criticism, due to insurance practices that prioritise profits over people’s lives and well-being.
“All of that pain that people have experienced is being concentrated on this event,” Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez told reporters last week. “It’s really important that we take a step back, this is not to comment and this is not to say that an act of violence is justified, but I think for anyone who is confused or shocked or appalled, they need to understand that people interpret and feel and experience denied claims as an act of violence against them.”