Taylor Lorenz heaped praise on accused UnitedHealthcare CEO assassin Luigi Mangione and slammed the media for criticizing the legion of unhinged youths who consider him a hero or role model.
“It’s hilarious to see these millionaire media pundits on TV clutching their pearls about someone stanning a murderer when this is the United States of America — as if we don’t lionize criminals,” the influencer and former reporter for the New York Times and Washington Post told CNN in a bubbly interview.
“As if we don’t stan murderers of all sorts. We give them Netflix shows,” she added.
Mangione, 26, is on trial for the cold-blooded Dec. 4 execution of United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson, 50, who was gunned down in the streets of Midtown Manhattan outside his hotel.
Mangione is accused of plotting the assassination in order to sow terror in the health insurance industry, which he allegedly railed against in a journal police seized during his arrest in Pennsylvania days after the shooting, prosecutors say.
Since the killing, Mangione has risen to folk hero status among some radical leftists, who consider his alleged actions acceptable — or even admirable.
A Reddit community called r/FreeLuigi has more than 38,000 members, mostly girls and young women, who breathlessly proclaim Mangione’s innocence and gush about his matinee idol looks in a deranged internet echo chamber.
They share photos of the Luigi-themed T-shirts (some portraying him as a saint), sketches, cakes, embroidery and paintings they’ve created.
His adoring female fans send sacks of letters to the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn where he’s currently being held. One admirer even sneaked a heart-shaped note to him concealed in a pair of argyle socks.
O’Sullivan asked Lorenz about the media’s typically negative reactions to the fangirls who have shown up in force at his court appearances, and she said she felt their veneration of the accused murderer made perfect sense.
“You’re gonna see women especially that feel like, ‘oh my God, here’s this man who’s a revolutionary, who’s famous, who’s handsome, who’s young, who’s smart, he’s a person that seems like this morally good man,’ which is hard to find,” Lorenz said as she and CNN correspondent Donnie O’Sullivan laughed gaily.
The Trump administration has taken the rare step of seeking the death penalty against Mangione, pushing for what would be the first Manhattan federal execution in 70 years.
“Luigi Mangione’s murder of Brian Thompson — an innocent man and father of two young children — was a premeditated, cold-blooded assassination that shocked America,” US Attorney Pam Bondi said in a press release earlier this month.
“After careful consideration, I have directed federal prosecutors to seek the death penalty in this case as we carry out President Trump’s agenda to stop violent crime and Make America Safe Again,” Bondi added.
Lorenz has made her share of disturbing statements on social media in defense of Mangione, including openly celebrating Thompson’s murder.
Last December, she told Piers Morgan that she felt “joy” about the brutal killing, “along with so many other Americans,” she claimed.
When Morgan incredulously held her feet to the fire, Lorenz attempted to walk back her ghoulish praise of the assassination, which left two children fatherless, saying, “Maybe not joy, but certainly not empathy.”
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