Taylor Lorenz has, once again, gone viral for something she said. This time it was a comment she made in an episode of CNN’s “MisinfoNation” on Sunday in which she said supporters of Luigi Mangione — who is accused of gunning down United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson in Dec. — view him as a “morally good man.”
That comment, shared in a teaser clip by CNN’s Donie O’Sullivan, the show’s host, was ripped by many on X. Sen. Ted Cruz called Lorenz a “communist” who “is openly celebrating murder,” while The Daily Wire’s Matt Walsh said she is a “psychotic wench.” Walsh also ripped O’Sullivan for sitting and laughing at Lorenz’s comment, adding it was “just an utterly depraved display all around.”
O’Sullivan joked in the clip that “I just realized women will literally date an assassin before they swipe right on me,” before asking Lorenz if the mainstream media does not understand support for Mangione in the same way it does not understand support for President Trump.
On Monday, TheWrap reached out to Lorenz to ask if she viewed Mangione as a “morally good man.”
“No, do you think I’m showing up [to support him at trial]?” Lorenz responded.
A moment earlier, Lorenz said it should have been clear that she was discussing the view of Mangione’s fans, not her own opinion.
“I’m talking about his supporters, which is what that segment is about. It’s about these women that are waiting outside the courthouse and showing up outside his prison and stuff like that, and sort of how they view him and why they view him [as a hero],” Lorenz said. “And Donie didn’t use this second part, but I’ve made it very clear that I think they’re in for rude awakening once he starts talking. I don’t think he’s as radical as they believe him to be.”
Later in the conversation, when pressed if it would be fair to say in a headline that she does not view Mangione as a morally good man, Lorenz said:
“I think that probably Luigi, like everyone else on this earth, could do things that are morally great and do things that are morally wrong. I think that we as a society need to figure out what, where the moral line is drawn. And I think to a lot of people — and this is what I said from the beginning — no, I don’t think people should be shot dead in the streets, period. Okay.”
Lorenz then said the bigger issue the country needs to grapple with is the healthcare system, not renegade shooters who are a byproduct of the anger millions of Americans feel.
“What I will say is that I don’t believe that our healthcare system is morally good. I believe that our healthcare system is morally bankrupt and wrong and murderous,” Lorenz said. “And when we have these conversations and we talk about whether Luigi is morally … what is moral or not, why? Why are the headlines about Luigi and not about the healthcare system? What you can put in a headline is that I believe our healthcare system is evil and morally bankrupt.”
Lorenz added the healthcare system is one of many “violent systems” in the U.S. and that, until those are fixed in a nonviolent way, the establishment will only respond to violent acts like the shooting of Thompson.
“We have a lot of violent systems in America. Our immigration system is violent. Our prison system is violent, our healthcare system is violent,” Lorenz said. “And until people feel seen and heard and have that violence recognized by people in power in the media, they’re going to feel unheard, and they’re going to see that the only language that people in power seem to speak is violence.”
Lorenz is a former technology reporter for The New York Times and Washington Post, which she left last year to start her own publication, dubbed “User,” on Substack. In her conversation with TheWrap, she said that, while she does not believe assassinations are the answer to fixing the “violent systems” she disagrees with, she would not lose sleep over future shootings, either.
“I think Joe Biden is a genocidal war criminal, okay? If he dies, I’m not going to cry about it,” Lorenz said. “Does that mean that I think that somebody should go shoot him, gun him down in the street? That’s not something I would advocate for.”
