Journalist Taylor Lorenz has provoked anger after describing Luigi Mangione as “handsome,” “smart,” and “morally good” in a discussion about his online fandom.
Mangione, 26, was arrested in December for the murder of United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson, 50, outside of the New York Hilton Midtown in Manhattan, before fleeing the scene and sparking a week-long manhunt.
U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi has said the Justice Department will seek the death penalty for what she characterized as “an act of political violence.”
However, Mangione’s actions have been celebrated as vigilante heroism in some corners of the internet, with many expressing sympathy with his anger over the cost of health insurance provided by firms like Thompson’s.
Speaking to CNN’s Donie O’Sullivan for Sunday’s installment of his show MisinfoNation, Lorenz ridiculed the media outrage over Mangione’s celebrity.
“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, as if we don’t have, you know, we don’t stan murderers of all sorts, and we can give them Netflix shows,” she said.
“There’s a huge disconnect between the narratives and the angles that mainstream media pushes and what the American public feels.”
Asked by O’Sullivan about the gatherings of female supporters who have congregated outside of the defendant’s court hearings in New York so far, the former Washington Post and New York Times journalist laughed.
“You’re going to see women especially that feel like, Oh my God, right? Like, here’s this man who’s revolutionary, who’s famous, who’s handsome, who is young, who’s smart,” she said.
“He’s a person that seems like this morally good man, which is hard to find.”
O’Sullivan joked in response: “Yeah, I just realized women will literally date an assassin before they swipe right on me. That’s where we’re at.”
Senator Ted Cruz led the conservative fury when a clip of their flippant exchange was posted to X.
“This communist is openly celebrating murder,” he fumed. “And treated as an actual ‘journalist.’”
“You know who would disagree with the absurd assertion from Taylor Lorenz that Luigi Mangione is a ‘morally good man’? Brian Thompson's wife and two kids,” wrote former NCAA swimming star Riley Gaines.
“Taylor Lorenz was born 40 years too late. She would have made an excellent member of the Manson Family,” another account said.
Others hit back at Lorenz by calling her “an absolute psychopath”, a “psychotic wench” and, more unexpectedly, as a “well-known lawn flamingo.”
Lorenz is a regular target of attacks from the right online, with comments she makes frequently blowing up and feeding an arguably disingenuous outrage culture, so much so that she has been called “the most harassed technology journalist in America” and her career recommended for study to fellow reporters.
The network itself also received criticism for airing her comments, with conservative pundit Ian Miller writing: “CNN is happy to call any opinions they don’t like harmful and dangerous and now they’re doing a interview with Taylor Lorenz who openly fawns over Luigi Mangione and calls him moral.”
“Amazing what protection having the right political ideology buys.”
Mangione was extradited to New York following his arrest in a Pennsylvania branch of McDonald’s on December 9 and charged with four federal crimes: two counts of stalking, murder through use of a firearm, and a further firearms offense.
He was arraigned before the state’s Supreme Court on December 23 and pleaded not guilty. He has since been held at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn.
His next federal court date is currently set for April 18, followed by a state hearing on June 26.
