On Monday, President-elect Donald Trump addressed the recent shooting of United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson and the controversial praise for the alleged shooter, Luigi Mangione.
“I think it’s really terrible that some people seem to admire him,” Trump remarked during a press conference at Mar-a-Lago.
Describing the act, Trump stated, “That was a terrible thing. It was cold-blooded. Just a cold-blooded, horrible killing.”
While many politicians have condemned the shooting, some progressive Democrats have acknowledged the incident as a reflection of public frustration with the healthcare system, particularly noting that not everyone reacted negatively to the news.
“We don’t want to see the chaos that vigilantism presents,” said Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York to Business Insider. “We also don’t want to see the extreme suffering that millions of Americans confront when your life changes overnight from a horrific diagnosis, and people are led to just some of the worst — not just health events, but the worst financial events of their and their family’s lives.”
Trump expressed confusion over the divided public response, questioning its legitimacy.
“How people can like this guy is… that’s a sickness, actually,” he said. “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. I don’t get it.”