The White House took a stance and condemned the murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson on Tuesday, without fully commenting on the investigation itself.
During a press conference, press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre denounced violence in general following the arrest and subsequent charges of his alleged assassin, Luigi Mangione. She also offered condolences to Thompson’s grieving family while avoiding a formal, direct statement on his murder.
“While we’re certainly not going to comment on the investigation… we condemn violence in the strongest term,” Jean-Pierre said.
“Obviously, this is horrific,” she continued. “Violence to combat any sort of corporate greed is unacceptable. I’m going to let the investigation move forward, and I’m not going to speak to any manifestos or anything that is coming out to this.”
On Monday, 26-year-old Ivy League grad Mangione was arrested at a McDonald’s in Altoona, Pennsylvania, following a five-day manhunt after the shooting outside the New York Hilton Midtown last Wednesday. He has been charged with second-degree murder, forgery and three counts of illegal weapons possession and was denied bail.
Jean-Pierre was also asked during the press conference if she thought the American people were being taken advantage of by insurance companies, though she ultimately dodged the question: “I’m going to let this open investigation continue and let the law enforcement do their job.”
Thompson, 50, was fatally shot on Dec. 4 while in Manhattan for a company investor meeting. The shooter was captured on video in the act and afterward in video taken by a taxi cab camera. The shooter had also etched the words “deny,” “delay” and “depose” on bullet casings that were found at the scene.
The shooter was already becoming something of a folk hero when Mangione was picked up Monday afternoon. Shortly after the name went public, his X (formerly Twitter) account was discovered and more details about the young man emerged.
A prep school valedictorian and graduate of the University of Pennsylvania, where he focused on computer science and cognitive science, Mangione received a Master of Science in Engineering, Computer and Information Science from the same university in 2020, The New York Post reported.
His X account exhibited a number of issues with things like Netflix, porn, woke-ism and which drugs were good and which were bad. He was also convinced that humanity was heading in the wrong direction on a number of levels.
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