Liberal commentator Briahna Joy Gray stunned British journalist Piers Morgan and guests on his show by admitting she has no empathy for slain UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson.
During a segment Tuesday on "Piers Morgan Uncensored," the host pressed the pundit on whether she felt for Thompson, who was shot in the back and killed by a waiting assassin outside a Manhattan hotel last week.
"Right. So, to be clear, you don’t have any empathy for him after he was executed?" Morgan asked.
"I personally don’t," Gray admitted in a controversial moment flagged by The Daily Caller.
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Gray prompted Morgan’s direct question when she began discussing the "discontent" that Americans feel towards powerful health care companies and executives like Thompson.
Naming the suspected assassin, 26-year-old Ivy League graduate Luigi Mangione, Gray said, "Luigi is just a vessel through which people are expressing their deep frustrations with the American healthcare system."
She continued, "So the question is, if you don’t want murders like this to be happening — assassinations to be happening like this in the street — I’m someone who does not believe in the death penalty and don’t condone these kinds of vigilante instances of violence in either case… you have to get to the root of why there is this deep well of tragedy, despair and outrage in the United States of America."
Suspicious that Gray’s statement was evidence of callousness towards the man who was killed, Morgan asked, "But just to be clear… do you feel any empathy for Brian Thompson and his family?"
The guest dodged slightly, saying it was more about his job than him personally.
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"I have infinite empathy for any individual as a person in their personal capacity. As his role as the CEO of UnitedHealthcare, I’m afraid I’m with the overwhelming majority, bipartisan majority of the American people who say, ‘I’m saving my empathy for people who are much more vulnerable.’"
Morgan asked her the same question once more, which prompted her frank admission that she doesn’t have empathy for the dead CEO.
"Right. OK, well, at least you’re honest," the host responded.
He then provided some commentary, pointing to Gray’s thoughts as evidence that liberals are hypocrites in their appeals to empathy.
"I mean, I find this staggering. You’ve got to remember, the left is supposed to be the party that cares so much," Morgan said. "All of them have their ‘be kind’ hashtags. They’re the caring ones, the kind ones, and they can’t even bring it in their hearts to say they find a shred of empathy for a man who’s just been executed, who’s the father of children, the husband of a loving wife, and so on."
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Morgan had a similar exchange with former Washington Post journalist Taylor Lorenz earlier this week.
"I do believe in the sanctity of life and I think that’s why I felt, along with so many other Americans, joy, unfortunately," Lorenz told Piers during Monday’s episode, describing her feelings on Thompson’s death.
She quickly walked back the word "joy," but the host pounced, asking, "How could this make you joyful? This guy is a husband, he’s a father, and he’s been gunned down in the middle of Manhattan. Why does that make you joyful?"
"So are the tens of thousands of Americans that he murdered!" she fired back. "So are the tens of thousands of Americans, innocent Americans, who died because greedy health insurance executives like this one push a policy of denying care to the most vulnerable people."
