“That’s a sickness, actually.”
Not a Fan
President-elect Donald Trump has finally spoken out about the murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson.
During a news conference this week — nearly two weeks after Thompson was gunned down in the streets of Manhattan — Trump suggested that there’s either something wrong with people valorizing Mangione — or something wrong with the media reporting on that public reaction.
“How people can like this guy, is… that’s a sickness, actually,” Trump said of the 26-year-old alleged assassin, who has been charged with murder as an act of terrorism by the Manhattan district attorney. “Maybe it’s fake news, I don’t know.”
“It’s hard to believe that can even be thought of, but it seems that there’s a certain appetite for him,” the former and future president continued. “I don’t get it.”
In Cold Blood
During that same news conference, which was held at Mar-a-Lago alongside SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son to announce the Japanese banker’s $100 billion pledge to help build AI in the US, Trump also sounded off on the way Thompson was shot.
“It was cold-blooded; just a cold-blooded, horrible killing,” the president-elect said. “The way it was done, it was so bad, right in the back and very bad.”
There’s little surprise that Trump, himself a CEO and the subject of an attempted assassination earlier this year, would take this stance on the shooting, though the amount of time it took him to make the remarks feels telling.
During that lengthy silence, Trump welcomed another young killer — 25-year-old Marine veteran Daniel Penny— to his box during the Army-Navy football game. The stunt took place just a few days after Penny was acquitted of negligent homicide in the death of Jordan Neely despite being captured on video putting the 30-year-old man in a chokehold for three long minutes in a crowded subway car.
It’s striking that the president-elect would find it appropriate to pal around with one New York killer while disparaging another — except, of course, when you consider who died in those disparate encounters.
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