Texas’ largest newspaper, the Houston Chronicle, rebuked Senator Ted Cruz, a Texas Republican, on Saturday in an editorial, writing that the lawmaker’s comment about the shooting death of United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson was used to “vilify, inflame and divide.”
Thompson, 50, was fatally shot on December 4 while en route to speak at UnitedHealth Group’s investor conference in Midtown Manhattan. New York City Police (NYPD) Commissioner Jessica Tisch reported that Thompson was struck in the back and leg.
Authorities arrested 26-year-old suspect Luigi Mangione on Monday at a McDonald’s in Altoona, Pennsylvania. Mangione is currently facing a second-degree murder charge, among others, in New York and is also facing charges in Pennsylvania. A manifesto found with Mangione suggested his alleged actions were fueled by anger toward the health insurance industry, describing executives as “parasites.”
On Monday, Cruz took to X, formerly Twitter, to weigh in on the shooting as he condemned “leftists” who have voiced sympathy for the suspected shooter or expressed satisfaction over the fatal shooting.
“Leftism is a mental disease. The suspected murderer, an Ivy League graduate, ‘subscribed to anti-capitalist and climate-change causes, according to law-enforcement.’ And the murderer has been widely celebrated by leftists online. Tragic & sick,” he wrote.
In an op-ed published by the Chronicle on Saturday, the newspaper’s editorial board critiqued Cruz’s response and described it as a post to “vilify, inflame and divide.”
“This week he leapt into the swirling headlines around the murder of United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson and suspect Luigi Mangione by doing what he does best: flattening complex issues and people into sound bites (or social media posts) that vilify, inflame and divide.”
Newsweek has reached out to Cruz’s office via email for comment on Sunday morning.
The newspaper’s editorial board added that Cruz’s point about it being “tragic & sick” has “some merit not just because celebrating murder can be tragic and sick, but because some of the people doing it apparently had their own experiences with tragedy and sickness that health care denials only exacerbated.”
It added: “But blaming the vengeful anger on ‘leftism?’ Cruel health insurance practices in this country are their own kind of disease. Cruz could help heal it, if he wanted. But that would require doing his job.”
Reactions to Thompson’s death and Mangione’s arrest suggest that a significant segment of the American public may be supportive of the suspect, with many across the country having come to view Mangione as a sort of folk hero—expressing their outrage and frustration with the nation’s private health insurance industry.
While many also said they did not condone or approve of Mangione’s actions, they have also struggled to feel empathy for Thompson.
The murder has been a boiling point in Americans’ anger over the health care industry, as many have cited their own negative experiences in dealing with insurance claims.
It is also far from clear that any real movement is forming or that support for Mangione and indifference to Thompson’s killing is coming exclusively from the left.
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