This article is part of <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/upstream" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Upstream</a>, The Daily Wire’s new home for culture and lifestyle. Real human insight and human stories — from our featured writers to you.
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Step aside &#8220;Chicago,&#8221; there’s a new show in town that glamorizes celebrity criminals. Featuring alleged sex trafficker Sean Diddy Combs, convicted fraudster Sam Bankman-Fried, and alleged assassin Luigi Mangione, &#8220;Luigi: The Musical&#8221; brings all three together in a supposed satire comedy.
I walked in with an open mind, assuming the show would lampoon the trio and the fact that they were once all housed at the same Brooklyn prison, the Metropolitan Detention Center. Musical theater doesn’t necessarily shy away from tackling sensitive subjects and sacred cows. &#8220;The Producers,&#8221; a musical by Jewish filmmaker Mel Brooks, includes a love song to the Third Reich, “Springtime for Hitler.” &#8220;The Book of Mormon,&#8221; written by the creators of South Park, roasts the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Surely, &#8220;Luigi&#8221; would mock its subject as well. 
It turns out, it only pretended to do that. On Thursday night in Hell’s Kitchen, I learned that the crowd was attending not just to laugh but to show their support for a certain message.
“It tells you a lot that this place is packed,” the guy next to me said. “It was bad what he did, but the CEO wasn’t a good guy.” 
He said his office is on the Midtown block where the shooting took place. The girl behind me in line to get into the venue said the show had been such a blockbuster success in Manhattan that it added two more show times. Safe to say, there were a lot of Mangione sympathizers in the house. They were eager for validation, and the show delivered. 
The first signal of the show’s agenda came when Mangione broke out into a humorous ballad that quickly turned serious. Titled “All for a Smile,” the song details how Mangione was ultimately caught by authorities because he pulled down his mask at a youth hostel check-in to smile at a staff member, exposing his identity to the security cameras.  
“I shouldn’t have bought those hash browns,” the actor laments about his character’s subsequent visit to a McDonald’s in Pennsylvania, where he sat brooding over a table with his manifesto and the gun he allegedly used to commit the crime. 
“A martyr’s life is what I chose,” he belts with an indignant passion. 
The show&#8217;s tone suggests that Mangione was not some calculating monster but a principled man and a reluctant killer. I realized halfway through the show that the intention behind including the disgraced music giant and crypto entrepreneur in the story was so they could serve as foils to Mangione’s more noble motivations. 
Desperate for fame and fortune, Bankman-Fried and Combs are peas in a pod, while Mangione is the odd one out in this band of misfits. The rapper and the nerd exchange witty banter that culminates in their (fictional) gay relationship. While Bankman-Fried defines “venture capitalism” as investing in startups in exchange for capital, Combs remarks that he basically does the same thing by investing in the potential of his strippers. As they formulate a prison escape plan, Bankman-Fried muses that they could finance their heist through a “classic pump and dump,” by which he means artificially driving up the value of an asset and then shorting it for quick cash. Combs says that he too is familiar with the pump and dump, but that it means something different at his Hamptons white parties.
All these clever double entendres are meant to show that whether white collar crime or sexual exploits, it’s all the same evil. Those two fiends were hungry for money, power, and pleasure. Mangione, on the other hand? He is simply accused of gunning down a father and a husband in cold blood for the altruistic purpose of avenging victims of the healthcare industry (who apparently don’t understand that buying insurance doesn’t mean the company covers every claim). That was the obvious conclusion of the show. 
As an Australian guy I talked to put it, speaking about Mangione and Combs, respectively, “This one’s warranted, and this one’s nasty.” 
I questioned him about Australia’s nationalized healthcare system, which he praised as quite functional. He suggested nothing violent would ever happen in Australia because of grievances with corporate greed. Maybe not, but it recently experienced <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/bondi-beach-terrorist-was-previously-investigated-for-ties-to-isis">antisemitic terrorists</a> spraying bullets at Jews celebrating Hanukkah on the beach.
When I asked if there were long wait times to see a doctor in Australia, the guy replied, “Oh, yeah.”
That’s a major caveat of universal healthcare that progressives in America haven’t had to endure and therefore haven’t given much thought to. Nowhere in the show was the necessary nuance about why our healthcare system is so convoluted and seemingly capricious. Like, the fact that government intervention has <a href="https://www.heritage.org/article/the-truth-about-government-controlled-health-care">overcomplicated</a> it six ways to Sunday. The coexistence of government programs and private insurers forces healthcare providers to navigate a complex labyrinth of billing codes, rules, and claims processing, making administrative expenses account for nearly <a href="https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC12920308/">25% of all healthcare spending</a>.
With tears in his eyes, Mangione reads letters from fan girls and fitness chads with serious injuries and medical conditions, treatment for which their insurance companies denied. The show ends with the prison guard taking Mangione to solitary confinement, where he confesses in soap opera fashion that he, too, requested coverage for a debilitating health problem that United Healthcare denied. Moved by Mangione’s cause, the guard gives him his gun back to bust out of the clink. Prison corruption and murder to own the health insurance complex!
The claim that the musical was a satire was a massive stretch. It’s not a satire if it picks and chooses which characters, all of whom did or allegedly did very immoral things, to criticize. It was whiplash-inducing to keep up with when the left-wing editorializing starts and stops. The most abrupt transition comes after the prison guard has at length justified Mangione’s vendetta with his sob story. With a lyric that lands as more sincere than satirical, the final song proclaims, “We’ll shoot everybody until there’s peace on earth.”
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Caroline Downey is a columnist and video personality at National Review. She is also a senior fellow at the Independent Women’s Forum and a 2025-2026 Novak fellow with the Fund for American Studies.

Luigi Mangione Returns To Court

The Left’s New Antihero Just Got His Own Musical

Luigi Mangione

Theater

Upstream

Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Gregory Carro said in a court hearing on Wednesday that Luigi Mangione will argue a “psychiatric defense” for his upcoming state trial over the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson. 
The man who is painted by many on the Left as an <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/luigi-mangione">antihero</a> will now seek to present evidence that he experienced “extreme emotional disturbance” at the time of Thompson’s killing, <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/us/judge-reveals-luigi-mangione-pursue-psychiatric-defense-unitedhealthcare-ceo-assassination-case">Fox News</a> reported.
Mangione&#8217;s psychiatric defense could downgrade a murder conviction to a manslaughter conviction if the jury buys his argument. Mangione’s exact psychiatric issues are not clear, but the defense will have to inform the prosecutors of what malady the defendant suffers from and what caused his “extreme emotional disturbance&#8221; ahead of the state trial, which is set to begin on September 8.
<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/suspect-in-unitedhealthcare-ceo-assassination-charged-with-murder?author=Zach+Jewell&amp;category=News&amp;elementPosition=undefined&amp;row=0&amp;rowType=Vertical+List&amp;title=Suspect+In+UnitedHealthcare+CEO+Assassination+Charged+With+Murder">On December 4, 2024</a>, Mangione allegedly gunned down Thompson outside of the Hilton Hotel in Midtown Manhattan. He was arrested five days later in Altoona, Pennsylvania. Evidence of premeditation was found in a notebook he had on him during the arrest, detailing how to carry out the murder and why. He also carried a manifesto against insurance companies, specifically mentioning “United.”  
The judge ordered the defense to give further details to the DA&#8217;s office by Thursday.
Dr. Marc Siegel, a clinical professor of medicine at NYU Langone Medical Center, pointed out on <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/video/6398666923112">Fox News</a> that Mangione said himself in 2025 that “he doesn’t have mental illness, that he doesn’t suffer from drug abuse of any kind. … They’re gonna hang this on the fact that he had spinal fusion surgery in 2023, and he had been suffering in pain, and isolation, and anxiety.” 
Siegel doesn’t believe any of Mangione&#8217;s claims would “meet the bar of extreme emotional disturbance if it hadn’t been diagnosed previously, where he had some kind of delusional or psychotic disorder as a result.” 
Legal analyst Kerri Urbahn sees the defense linking the “emotional disturbance” to Mangione’s spinal fusion surgery back in 2023, arguing that excessive angst and anger built up over time, and then he eventually “exploded — reacted and gunned down the CEO.”
Mangione has already received a favorable ruling in his federal case, when a judge dismissed charges in the case that made him eligible for the death penalty. Mangione pleaded not guilty to all state and federal charges.

US-JUSTICE-CRIME-MANGIONE

The Defense Strategy Luigi Mangione Is Betting Everything On

Court

New York

Ted Bundy had admirers. Jeffrey Dahmer had a girlfriend. Luigi Mangione has a mob of bloodthirsty progressive fanatics, and now, press credentials.
Meet the self-proclaimed &#8220;<a href="https://www.instagram.com/themangionistas/">Mangionistas</a>&#8220;: Abril Rios, Ashley Rojas, and Lena Weissbrot. Three young women who have apparently fallen head over heels for the man accused of executing UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in cold blood on a Midtown Manhattan sidewalk on December 4, 2024. A father of two was shot in the back while walking to an investor conference. For months, the trio has been posting trial updates, churning out &#8220;Free Luigi&#8221; content, and calling for jury nullification through thirst traps and anti-corporate screeds.
New York City&#8217;s socialist mayor, Zohran Mamdani, handed them <a href="https://nypost.com/2026/05/18/us-news/luigi-mangione-reporters-unapologetically-celebrate-ceos-assassination-fk-brian-thompson/?utm_campaign=nypost&amp;utm_medium=social&amp;utm_source=twitter">lanyards</a> to do it.
Under the city&#8217;s newly relaxed &#8220;indie creator&#8221; credentialing rules, you qualify for a press pass if you&#8217;ve posted six or more pieces of content about a breaking news event. Six posts. Low bar. So Abril Rios, self-described &#8220;Hot Girl for Zohran&#8221; and proud Mangionista, walked up to the courthouse covering a murder trial for a man she openly worships, press pass dangling from her neck. Same for Ashley Rojas, who bills herself as a &#8220;writer,&#8221; and Lena Weissbrot: Self-described game developer, rapper performing under the stage name &#8220;Fellatia G,&#8221; and the owner of an online wishlist that includes a bulletproof helmet, body armor, and a 3D printer. Just normal press corps stuff.
Outside the courthouse Monday, Rojas looked into a camera and said, city-issued credential swinging from her neck: “I’m standing on business: f*ck Brian Thompson. I don’t give a flying f*ck he died. F*ck Brian Thompson. F*ck his mom.”
Weissbrot donning a neon green, pink, and purple striped costume and sporting pigtails added coldly that Thompson&#8217;s teenage sons &#8220;are better off without him&#8221; and should &#8220;enjoy the blood money.&#8221; Then she drew a slow finger across her throat and said his name.
Rios, chomping gum, wondered aloud why the Second Amendment exists if not to &#8220;shoot up schools,&#8221; before turning to the camera and informing the president of the United States: &#8220;Trump, I&#8217;m coming for you, baby.&#8221;
What lovely, classy, tolerant women New York City is churning out these days.
On Instagram, Weissbrot <a href="https://www.instagram.com/fellatiag/">posted</a> a lengthy caption beneath a photo of herself in her Luigi costume, which included the following disclaimer: &#8220;I condemn all violence by all people of all time in perpetuity forever.&#8221; Beautiful.
She then spent the rest of the caption calling the American healthcare system &#8220;a slaughter house,&#8221; declaring that whoever killed Brian Thompson is a “hero,&#8221; and arguing that people have the right to violence when they feel threatened and the threat &#8220;refuses to stop.&#8221;
So: violence condemned, permanently, universally. Unless the target is someone you&#8217;ve decided deserves it. The permission structure for murder, it turns out, has a very low bar on the <a href="https://yougov.com/en-us/articles/52960-charlie-kirk-americans-political-violence-poll">Left</a>. Especially for “hot” girls for Zohran, who are quite “hot” for “heroic violence.”
As a society, we should be pointing at and shaming these people. But instead of condemning this dangerous and frightening behavior, mentally ill women have been given a megaphone.
Besides abiding by a moral code reads something like: “Thou shall do whatever the f*ck thou wants to people who disagree with thou. Murder is cool if it’s against someone uncool. Stand on business, Queen,” they’re also just wholeheartedly wrong on the merits.
They claimed, with apparent sincerity, that Brian Thompson personally killed more people than Osama bin Laden. First: if Bin Laden were somehow in a courtroom today, something tells me these women would be posting thirst traps for him too. Second: this is simply deranged. Total U.S. deaths run roughly 3.1 million annually. The leading killers are heart disease, cancer, and accidents, not claim denials. American private insurance, for all its flaws, has driven the medical innovation that gives the U.S. some of the highest cancer survival rates in the world. Brian Thompson started with next to nothing, spent over two decades rising through UnitedHealth Group, and built a life. He did not deserve to be shot from behind. His sons did not deserve to lose their father. His wife did not deserve to be widowed.
But facts are irrelevant here, because the Mangionistas don&#8217;t want solutions. They want blood, and they want it to be aesthetically pleasing on their feeds.
There&#8217;s a clinical name for this: Hybristophilia, a romantic or sexual attraction to violent criminals, is a well-documented, overwhelmingly female phenomenon. Social media, true-crime TikTok, and the romanticization of the &#8220;dangerous misunderstood man&#8221; have turbocharged it. Add weaponized female empathy, an anti-corporate ideology that teaches generations that billionaires are the real terrorists, and platforms that reward outrage over accuracy, and you get a press-badged ghoul telling a dead man&#8217;s kids to enjoy the blood money.
This is not a few bad apples, and the data bears that out. Affective polarization is at a record high. At least 41% of Americans aged 18–29 <a href="https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/5044269-poll-finds-41-percent-find-killing-unacceptable/">viewed</a> Thompson&#8217;s death as at least &#8220;somewhat acceptable.&#8221; Political violence from the Left is rising. When institutions (including the mayor&#8217;s office) legitimize and platform those who glorify it, the problem doesn&#8217;t stay online.
The Mangionistas are not a fringe aberration. They are the logical, grotesque endpoint of a progressive ideology that spent decades replacing objective and religious morality with emotivism, facts with feelings, and the rule of law with tribal vengeance. When you teach people that success is theft, that corporations are terrorists, and that murdering someone &#8220;uncool&#8221; is activism, you don&#8217;t get revolutionaries. You get this.
Even Mangione&#8217;s own attorney, Karen Friedman Agnifilo, condemned the trio. &#8220;These individuals do not represent the views of Luigi,&#8221; she said, calling their statements &#8220;vile and irresponsible.&#8221; When your behavior is too unhinged for the accused murderer&#8217;s defense team, you have made a serious wrong turn.
Take the press passes back, Mayor Mamdani. Some things shouldn&#8217;t come with a lanyard.

Luigi Mangione And His Lawyers Attends Hearing In Manhattan Court

Murderer Fan Club Ghouls Are The New Courtroom Journalists

DW Opinion

New York City

A society that greenlights political violence is likely to see more of it.
A society that greenlights political violence by essentially arguing that the systems you don&#8217;t like are murderous systems and thus people who participate in those systems must be murdered is greenlighting political violence.
And then, when you have liberal judicial systems that are set up to let criminals off the hook, it gets even worse.
Yesterday, a judge ruled that while the murder weapon used in the murder of Brian Thompson was admissible at trial, a bunch of other evidence should be suppressed.
A New York judge ruled that some key evidence that was seized from Luigi Mangione’s backpack during his arrest at a Pennsylvania McDonald&#8217;s will be inadmissible at trial.
The decision is a little bit complex. It is also not particularly well-founded. The evidence that&#8217;s been ruled admissible includes the gun, a 3D printed silencer, and a red notebook that allegedly contains a bunch of damning writing.
<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/ben-shapiro-show-ep-2429?elementPosition=5&amp;row=5&amp;rowHeadline=Latest+Episodes&amp;rowType=Horizontal+Show+Episodes+Carousel"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-981859" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/10/ben-banner.avif" alt="" width="1024" height="171" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/10/ben-banner.avif 1024w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/10/ben-banner-300x50.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/10/ben-banner-768x128.jpg 768w" sizes=" (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></a>
The evidence to be suppressed, however, includes a phone, Mangione’s passport, a gun magazine, a wallet, and a computer chip.
The judge in this particular case said he agreed with the defense argument that the search of Mangione’s backpack at McDonald&#8217;s — without reading him his rights — was unconstitutional because it had been moved away from arm&#8217;s reach.
Why? New York law is super-duper-duper weird.
First of all, it&#8217;s unclear why New York law should apply, even though the entire search took place in Pennsylvania.
The judge wrote:
<blockquote>Defendant is being tried in New York for a crime that occurred in New York. Under these circumstances, it is clear that New York is the forum state and that New York has a paramount interest in the application of the law. Suppression issues, procedural issues, and evidentiary issues are governed by the law of the forum state.</blockquote>
That&#8217;s super-duper weird. If he&#8217;d been caught in California, why exactly would the cops in California have to know New York law to properly do their job?
New York&#8217;s laws on this sort of stuff are insane. Even the federal law regarding search and seizure is totally crazy.
A case called Mapp v. Ohio — one of those critical criminal law cases you learn in first-year law school — established the so-called “exclusionary rule.” For the vast majority of American history, if there was an illegal search and seizure where the cops broke into your house and they found evidence of a crime, that evidence was still admissible in court. The cop might be punished; there might be a lawsuit against the cop.
But Mapp v. Ohio established the so-called exclusionary rule, which said that if your Fourth Amendment rights are violated, we can&#8217;t use the evidence found in court.
The reason this is particularly stupid is that it penalizes the general public for the failures of the cops. The cops fail to fully follow the Fourth Amendment, and now criminals have to be let out on the street unless they “read you your rights.”
I know we all take this for granted now because we&#8217;ve watched a bunch of Law &amp; Order episodes, but it really is quite stupid. The idea that you have to be read your Miranda rights again — another ridiculous case, where somebody has to inform you of your right not to self-incriminate, or we&#8217;ll take the evidence and throw it out of court — is really, really dumb. It means that many more criminals get off and end up on the street.
In the Mangione case, New York law goes even further. New York law has something called the “exigency exception.” That means you are allowed to search someone without a warrant or any warning if there&#8217;s a threat of “exigent” danger.
There&#8217;s a guy who&#8217;s running away from you, and he&#8217;s firing a gun at you. You tackle him and you search his pockets and you come up with drugs. Those would be the “exigent” circumstances.
In Mangione’s case, the judge ruled that the property had to be within the suspect&#8217;s immediate control or grabbable area, but the backpack was moved away from him to a table about nine feet away, at which point it was no longer in his control. And so they could not search it without having the evidence excluded.
But later, after they had read him his rights, the evidence found was admissible.
Let&#8217;s say, for example, that you&#8217;re arrested before somebody reads you your Miranda rights. You immediately blurt out that you committed the crime. That may be inadmissible.
But after they read your rights, if you repeat what you had blurted out, it&#8217;s now admissible.
The bottom line is that much of our criminal justice system has been twisted in favor of the perpetrator and against the victims, and that is part and parcel of the broader effort over the course of the last 70 or 80 years in American law to grant outsized rights to perpetrators as opposed to defending the general public from those perpetrators.
And even that is not the really big issue here. The really big issue with Luigi Mangione, of course, is that he has a lot of supporters.
There&#8217;s been an entire permission structure that&#8217;s been set up largely by the Left that says if you don&#8217;t like the systems of American life, systems they view as intractable and unchangeable, people who participate in the systems are guilty.
I&#8217;m old enough to remember the Occupy Wall Street protests. Occupy Wall Street was a movement in 2011 that emerged in the aftermath of the Great Recession, and a group of people on the Left — instead of protesting the government&#8217;s involvement with Wall Street — decided to protest Wall Street itself.
The idea was that Wall Street was inherently evil. That was a completely misdirected use of mental and emotional resources because, after all, the members of Wall Street are not answerable to the general public. They&#8217;re operating in the private sphere.
If you wish to protest public policy, we have a whole city called Washington, D.C., where federal public policy gets made.
But that&#8217;s not what the Left was protesting. They weren’t protesting government involvement in industry — government&#8217;s heavy hand. They were protesting that government was not doing enough to be involved. They were protesting the existence of the private sector itself.
Thus, when they don&#8217;t like the systems, they blame members of the private sector for participating in those systems.
You can see this throughout left-wing politics. You see it in Zohran Mamdani saying ridiculous and insane things about the nature of how the world should work.
Yesterday, Mamdani was at an event, and he was talking about Ronald Reagan saying the nine most terrifying words in the English language are, “I&#8217;m from the government and I&#8217;m here to help.” Mamdani said, no, no, no, no. The most terrifying words in the English language are, “I worked all day and can&#8217;t feed my family.” He added, “We are going to use the power of government to lower prices and make it easier for New Yorkers to put food on the table.”
The entire left-wing thought structure is that failures are attributable to the private sector.
Government is always and forever the fix.
Thus, if you don&#8217;t like the health care system, it is not that the health care system in the United States can be a mess because it is heavily regulated and heavily subsidized, the real problem is that the people involved in the private sector are bad. The people involved in the public sector are good.
This creates a phenomenon that they like to call social murder, which justifies violence. So if, for example, you&#8217;re Brian Thompson — a father, a person who raised himself up from not particularly wonderful economic circumstances in his youth to become the head of United Health, one of the biggest insurers in America — and you operate within the law — the law itself is flawed, but you operate within it — you are responsible for death and deserve to die.
So yesterday, outside of the trial of Mangione, some self-proclaimed “Mangionistas” showed off press passes that they had received, according to the New York Post, from Mamdani’s administration.
One said of Thompson, “His children are better off without him. They need to learn to not be like their dad. And enjoy the blood money, kids. &#8230; He’s responsible for more deaths than Osama bin Laden. … It’s not like we don’t understand heroic violence, or, like, when violence is good.”
This is psychotic stuff.
The idea that Thompson, by being the CEO of a major insurance company, was somehow like Osama bin Laden, who literally ordered the flying of planes into buildings in New York, is psychotic.
But this is an increasingly popular view with people on the Left who believe that the private sector is responsible for all of the ills of society and that all the systems that they don&#8217;t like are run by people who are attempting to do things like murder.
Hassan Piker, considered a mainstream political commentator by the Left, was recently talking about “social murder” with regard to Mangione.
He stated:
<blockquote>Engels wrote about the concept of social murder, and Brian Thompson as the United Health Care CEO, was engaging in a tremendous amount of social murder. The systematized forms of violence, the structural violence of poverty, the for-profit pay-walled system of health care in this country. And the consequences of that are tremendous amounts of pain, tremendous amounts of violence, tremendous amounts of deaths.
And that was a fascinating story for me, because Americans are very draconian about crime and punishment. They&#8217;re very black and white on this issue. And yet, because of the pervasive pain that the private health care system had created for the average American, I saw so many people immediately understand why this death had taken place.</blockquote>
If you want more political violence in the United States, the Left will bring it to you.

donkey_blood

The Left’s Murder Fantasy

Ben Shapiro

Political Violence

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s credentialing process for the press has devolved into a license for lunacy.
On Monday, a trio of unhinged, bloodthirsty sycophants of accused assassin Luigi Mangione turned a Manhattan courthouse&#8217;s steps into a stage for vile, radical-Left theater. Self-proclaimed “Mangionistas” Abril Rios, Ashley Rojas, and Lena Weissbrot — a woman who performs under a vulgar stage name — proudly flaunted official city press passes while launching into stomach-turning diatribes celebrating political violence.
Armed with taxpayer-sanctioned credentials, the women launched into sickening, unvarnished attacks against the victim.
“F*ck Brian Thompson,” Rojas spat, wearing a city press pass. “That’s all I want to say. F*ck Brian Thompson. F*ck his mom,” she added, as The New York Post <a href="https://nypost.com/2026/05/18/us-news/luigi-mangione-reporters-unapologetically-celebrate-ceos-assassination-fk-brian-thompson/">reported</a>.
Weissbrot, clad in a garish striped outfit, targeted Thompson&#8217;s grieving family, chillingly declaring: “His children are better off without him. They need to learn to not be like their dad. And enjoy the blood money, kids.”
Weissbrot went on to minimize the cold-blooded assassination by comparing the executive to a terrorist mastermind: “He’s responsible for more deaths than Osama bin Laden. … It’s not like we don’t understand heroic violence, or, like, when violence is good.”
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
What you&#39;re about to watch is two members of the &quot;press&quot; credentialed by Mayor Mamdani, openly endorsing the heinous and evil assassination of United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson. Ashley Rojas and Lena Weissbrot are their names, and they deserve to be famous:
Rojas: &quot;I&#39;m saying… <a href="https://t.co/ub69hrtbqg">pic.twitter.com/ub69hrtbqg</a>
&mdash; Andrew Kolvet (@AndrewKolvet) <a href="https://twitter.com/AndrewKolvet/status/2056459490950828475?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 18, 2026</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Outside the courthouse, Rios aimed her vitriol at the president of the United States, saying, “I mean, why do we protect the Second Amendment so much — is it to allow people to shoot up schools, or is it to protect our democracy? Why can the president say we will hunt you and kill you in an official White House memo? Why is that allowed? But when we say the president should be held accountable and I want to see him hanging in the town square by his balls, that’s wrong? I’m sorry. Two can play at that game. Trump, I’m coming for you, baby.”
Weissbrot similarly called for the execution of &#8220;traitors,&#8221; adding, “I can’t exactly say I’m anti-death penalty, because if this were my regime,” then made a gesture indicating cutting her throat before saying “Brian Thompson.”
“Stop being a f*cking soy cuck and grow some f*cking balls,” she continued. “I have been waiting for someone like this mysterious hero to appear.”
Lost in this grotesque carnival is the nightmarish reality of the tragedy. On December 4, 2024, Thompson, a father of two, was subjected to a cold-blooded, meticulously planned execution. <a href="https://www.justice.gov/archives/opa/pr/luigi-mangione-charged-stalking-and-murder-unitedhealthcare-ceo-brian-thompson-and-use">According</a> to the DOJ, Mangione used fake identification, conducted reconnaissance, and ambushed Thompson from behind on a Midtown street, firing several rounds from a suppressed 9mm pistol. Mangione’s notebook callously detailed taking out &#8220;the CEO at the annual parasitic bean-counter convention,&#8221; according to authorities.
City Hall spokeswoman Dora Pekec told The New York Post that the administration was now reconsidering how it handles doling out press passes.

US-NEWS-NYC-CEO-MURDER-MANGIONE-SUPPORTERS-2-NY

Mamdani’s City Hall Gave Press Passes To Bloodthirsty Ghouls Celebrating Brian Thompson’s Murder

Brian Thompson

United Healthcare

A New York judge on Monday tossed out key evidence found in the backpack of Luigi Mangione, the man accused of gunning down UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in the heart of Manhattan.
Judge Gregory Carro ruled that evidence obtained from Mangione’s backpack when he was arrested at a Pennsylvania McDonald’s must be suppressed, including a magazine, cellphone, passport, computer chip, and wallet. 
A gun and notebook that prosecutors say connect Mangione to Thompson’s murder will still be allowed as evidence at the trial, which is set to begin on <a href="https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/luigi-mangione-due-court-ruling-backpack-evidence-ceo-killing-case-2026-05-18/">September 8 and last about six weeks</a>. 
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-media-max-width="560">
NEW VIDEO: Cameras inside the courtroom capture the moment New York State Supreme Court Judge Gregory Carro announces that some key pieces of evidence seized from Luigi Mangione’s backpack during his arrest at a Pennsylvania McDonald&#8217;s are inadmissible at trial, while some of it… <a href="https://t.co/dTbrR8dcYw">pic.twitter.com/dTbrR8dcYw</a>
— Fox News (@FoxNews) <a href="https://twitter.com/FoxNews/status/2056385258858197203?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 18, 2026</a></blockquote>
The ruling is a partial win for Mangione’s defense team, who argued that the search of the backpack without a warrant violated his constitutional rights.
&#8220;At the hearing, Altoona law enforcement officers repeatedly attempted to justify their warrantless search of Mr. Mangione&#8217;s backpack &#8230; instead, all these officers demonstrated was an utter disregard for a defendant&#8217;s constitutional rights and a shocking ignorance of basic search and seizure caselaw,&#8221; Mangione&#8217;s attorneys wrote in a state court filing, <a href="https://abcnews.com/US/judge-decide-throw-key-evidence-luigi-mangione/story?id=133018432">according to ABC News</a>. 
The prosecution argued the officers acted &#8220;in deliberate and painstaking fashion&#8221; while searching the backpack. 
&#8220;At every step, the Altoona officers responded to this unexpected and alarming situation reasonably,&#8221; Assistant District Attorney Joel Seidemann wrote in a court filing. 
Thompson was gunned down from behind in Midtown Manhattan on December 4, 2024, as he was walking to a hotel during his company’s annual investor conference. 
Shell casings retrieved from the scene had the words “deny,” &#8220;defend,&#8221; and “depose” written on them, according to the New York Police Department. The words found on the shell casings have been connected to a 2010 book that was critical of the health insurance industry. Mangione’s fingerprints allegedly matched those found on a water bottle and a protein bar wrapper recovered near the murder scene, and the gun recovered from his backpack was matched to shell casings found at the scene.
The killing sparked a massive, nationwide five-day manhunt, which ended with Mangione&#8217;s arrest at a McDonald’s in Altoona, Pennsylvania, which is more than 200 miles from Manhattan. At the fast-food chain, police found a loaded gun magazine in his backpack. A subsequent inventory search of the bag at the Altoona police station turned up a firearm, suppressor, and what appeared to be a manifesto, <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/doj-drops-fight-for-death-penalty-in-luigi-mangione-assassination-case">The Daily Wire previously reported</a>. 
Mangione pleaded not guilty to the federal and state murder charges. In January, U.S. District Judge Margaret Garnett dismissed two of the four charges, including use of a firearm to commit murder, which made him eligible for the death penalty.
Garnett said she dismissed the charges “solely to preclude the death penalty as an available punishment when the jury determines if the Defendant caused Brian Thompson’s death,” The Daily Wire <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/federal-judge-says-prosecutors-cant-pursue-death-penalty-against-luigi-mangione" target="_blank" rel="noopener">reported</a> at the time.
Behind bars, Mangione has amassed a following of mostly Left-wing advocates angry with the American healthcare system. A legal fund supporting his <a href="https://abcnews.com/US/judge-decide-throw-key-evidence-luigi-mangione/story?id=133018432">defense has surpassed $1.5 million</a>.
Mangione, if convicted of all charges, faces a maximum sentence of life in prison without parole.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
Supporters line up ahead of Luigi Mangione ruling <a href="https://t.co/uGw13E4Y1d">https://t.co/uGw13E4Y1d</a> <a href="https://t.co/SaYxZuazon">pic.twitter.com/SaYxZuazon</a>
— New York Post (@nypost) <a href="https://twitter.com/nypost/status/2056381879767417182?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 18, 2026</a></blockquote>

Luigi Mangione Scores Another Win As Judge Tosses Out Key Evidence

Crime

Judge

News

The suspect accused of starting one of the largest wildfires in Los Angeles history, fixated on Luigi Mangione weeks before starting the blaze out of resentment for the rich, according to federal prosecutors. 
Federal prosecutors said in a trial memorandum that 30-year-old Jonathan Rinderknecht demonstrated an obsession with Mangione in the days before he started the Lachman and Palisades Fires on January 1, 2025. Mangione has developed a cult following among the Left after he was arrested for gunning down Brian Thompson, the CEO of UnitedHealthcare.
“On January 24, 2025, when investigators asked defendant why someone might commit arson in the Pacific Palisades, he responded that it would be out of resentment of the rich enjoying their money as ‘we’re basically being enslaved by them’ and compared such an act of ‘desperation’ to the murder for which Mangione was charged,” the memo said. 
The memo added that Uber passengers who rode with Rinderknecht on December 31 and January 1 recounted him being “angry, intense, driving erratically, and ranting about being ‘pissed off at the world’ and Luigi Mangione, capitalism, and vigilantism.”
Prosecutors described Rinderknecht becoming “fixated” on Mangione in the weeks leading up to the fires, saying his internet search history revealed queries like “free Luigi Mangione,” “lets take down all the billionaires,” and “reddit lets kill all the billionaires.”
Rinderknecht has been charged with destroying property by fire, arson affecting property used in interstate commerce, and setting timber afire. Facing over forty years in prison, he has pleaded not guilty. 
&#8220;Millings of people in this country are fascinated with Luigi Mangione. To suggest that is a connection to the crime of ours is ridiculousarson is ridiculous [SIC],&#8221; Steve Haney, Rinderknecht&#8217;s lawyer, told The Daily Wire. &#8220;These are the depths that the government are going to in the absence of any evidence of my client committed a crime.&#8221;
The memo said that Rinderknecht had an obsession with fire and had previously burned a Bible. 
“A few months before the fire, defendant asked ChatGPT — an AI system that he used as a confidant and diary — to generate and then modify images of a ‘burning forest’ next to ‘a bunch of people running away,’” prosecutors said. “Defendant also confided to ChatGPT that he had burned a bible and that it felt ‘liberating.’ Later, after he knew he was under investigation for the fire, defendant threatened to burn down his sister’s house.”
Mangione is currently facing charges related to the assassination of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in December 2024. While a judge dismissed federal murder charges against Mangione, he still faces second-degree New York murder charges. In the wake of Mangione’s arrest, leftist activists have called for his release, claiming he was targeting an exploitative corporation.

MixCollage-04-May-2026-09-14-AM-5387

Major Arson Suspect Obsessed Over Luigi Mangione And Wanted To Kill The Rich, Prosecutors Say

California

Fire

Los Angeles

UnitedHealth Group has terminated an employee who lamented President Donald Trump surviving the latest attempt on his life, and suggested that the latest attempted assassination was staged.
The Daily Wire can confirm that Alison King, a social media manager at the health insurance giant, was fired shortly after the company became aware of a social media video in which she mocks Saturday night&#8217;s attack on the president at the White House Correspondents&#8217; Dinner in Washington, D.C.
&#8220;You know we&#8217;re cooked as a country when my first reaction to hearing the news &#8230; was &#8216;it was probably fake,'&#8221; King says in the video. &#8220;And the second was: &#8216;aww &#8230; they missed? So happy they missed.&#8221;
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
Social media manager for <a href="https://twitter.com/UHC?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@UHC</a> is sad that the shooter missed
Any comment <a href="https://twitter.com/UHC?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@UHC</a>? <a href="https://t.co/qGG4iOoD72">pic.twitter.com/qGG4iOoD72</a>
— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) <a href="https://twitter.com/libsoftiktok/status/2048940140785988027?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 28, 2026</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Utah Senator Mike Lee took to X to <a href="https://x.com/BasedMikeLee/status/2048954700280500596">slam King&#8217;s statement</a> late Monday evening, calling on UnitedHealth to respond. The company did in a Tuesday morning statement.
&#8220;Violence is never acceptable and any comments that suggest otherwise are in no way consistent with our mission and values,&#8221; UnitedHealth Group said in a statement on X. &#8220;The person who made comments online about Saturday night’s incident at a Washington event where President Trump and many other political leaders were gathered is no longer employed by the company.&#8221;
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
Violence is never acceptable and any comments that suggest otherwise are in no way consistent with our mission and values. The person who made comments online about Saturday night’s incident at a Washington event where President Trump and many other political leaders were…
— UnitedHealth Group (@UnitedHealthGrp) <a href="https://twitter.com/UnitedHealthGrp/status/2049100744079417625?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 28, 2026</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
A senior UnitedHealth employee told The Daily Wire that company leadership was appalled at the statement, given the murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson. That employee also noted that the company initiated the termination process immediately upon seeing King&#8217;s tweet.
Thompson was gunned down outside a Manhattan hotel in December 2024. The suspected gunman, <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/doj-drops-fight-for-death-penalty-in-luigi-mangione-assassination-case">Luigi Mangione</a>, has become a hero among leftists who believe he was justified in murdering the head of what they view is an exploitative company. The veneration of Mangione is just one of several indicators that violence has become increasingly acceptable on the Left, something Republicans <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/republican-leaders-blame-democratic-rhetoric-after-third-trump-assassination-attempt?author=Brecca+Stoll&amp;category=undefined&amp;elementPosition=4&amp;row=3&amp;rowHeadline=Latest+News&amp;rowType=Vertical+Carousel&amp;title=Republican+Leaders+Blame+Democratic+Rhetoric+After+Third+Trump+Assassination+Attempt">pointed out</a> after Saturday&#8217;s shooting.
“They’ve incited violence, in my view,” House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) said of Democratic lawmakers. “It’s time to turn down the rhetoric. We’ve been seeing this over and over. I hope that this will be a sobering reminder for everybody about that very important cause.”
The would-be Correspondents&#8217; Dinner assassin, Cole Tomas Allen, <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/manifesto-shows-shooter-was-willing-to-kill-everyone-at-correspondents-dinner?author=Brecca+Stoll&amp;category=News&amp;elementPosition=1&amp;row=0&amp;rowType=Vertical+List&amp;title=Manifesto+Shows+Shooter+Was+Willing+To+Kill+Everyone+At+Correspondents%E2%80%99+Dinner">wrote in a manifesto</a> he sent to family and friends before charging the Washington Hilton that he was willing to kill everyone in the room if it meant getting at Trump. Allen said he was attempting to kill the president because he was &#8220;no longer willing to permit a pedophile, rapist, and traitor to coat my hands with his crimes.”
Some Trump critics have responded to Saturday&#8217;s shooting with disappointment. A Florida Democrat organization <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/well-that-sucks-florida-democrats-mock-failed-assassination-attempt-on-president-trump?author=Hank+Berrien&amp;category=undefined&amp;elementPosition=13&amp;row=3&amp;rowHeadline=Latest+News&amp;rowType=Vertical+Carousel&amp;title=%E2%80%98WELL%2C+THAT+SUCKS%E2%80%99%3A+Florida+Democrats+Mock+Failed+Assassination+Attempt+On+President+Trump">posted</a> &#8220;that sucks&#8221; along with a &#8220;disappointed&#8221; face on social media after the shooting. A Democrat brewery owner who has promised to serve free beer whenever Trump dies also <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/dem-owned-brewery-promising-free-beer-day-if-trumps-murdered-whines-about-failed-attack?author=Drew+Berkemeyer&amp;category=News&amp;elementPosition=4&amp;row=0&amp;rowType=Vertical+List&amp;title=Dem-Owned+Brewery+Promising+%E2%80%98Free+Beer+Day%E2%80%99+If+Trump+Is+Murdered+Whines+About+Failed+Attack">lamented</a> the fact that the president survived the attack.

IMG_1766

UnitedHealth Group Fires Employee Who Called For Trump’s Assassination: “Aww…They Missed?”

Donald Trump

UnitedHealthcare

White House Correspondents’ Dinner

This article is part of <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/introducing-upstream-a-lifestyle-and-culture-section-of-the-daily-wire" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Upstream,</a> The Daily Wire’s new home for culture and lifestyle. Real human insight and human stories — from our featured writers to you.
***
Imagine a society where a man is murdered and the alleged killer receives love letters in prison, is treated like a folk hero, and even becomes the subject of a musical. That’s not fiction.
The valorization of Luigi Mangione, the man allegedly responsible for murdering a healthcare CEO in cold blood, says something disturbing about our culture. Even worse, the praise isn&#8217;t just coming from dark corners of the internet. It&#8217;s happening in the New York Times.
Far-left internet personality Hasan Piker drew deserved backlash for his recent claim that the slain CEO was responsible for “social murder.” But his comments offer an important glimpse into how parts of the Left now think — and how easily they rationalize the indefensible.
The case involving Mangione should be morally straightforward: a man is accused of murder. That used to end the conversation. Now it starts one, where the killing itself almost becomes secondary.
Listen to the logic: The system is broken. Insurance companies kill thousands of people every year. Healthcare is unjust. Fine. Debate all of it. But then comes the turn: If the system is harmful, the people inside it become morally implicated. And once that happens, violence against them starts to look like accountability. The rhetoric shifts from explanation to justification.
I saw this firsthand after a recent <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VNkBiEUPoVc" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v%3DVNkBiEUPoVc&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1777050105289000&amp;usg=AOvVaw1K80b9pQ2gakMhHwozjczb">Fox interview</a> where I criticized the growing tendency to glorify Mangione. My inbox is filled with angry, often threatening emails. What stood out was hostility and certainty. People repeatedly told me the murder was understandable because “insurance companies kill people.”
Think about that for a second: In the name of opposing harm, they were justifying it. In the name of moral clarity, they were abandoning it.
This, in many ways, is the outcome of grievance culture. For a certain segment of the Left, anger isn’t something to be examined or restrained. As long as it&#8217;s directed at the &#8220;right&#8221; source, it’s something to be nurtured or even celebrated, as we’re seeing with Mangione. They want villains. The rich, CEOs, corporations, politicians: If one target loses its emotional charge, another quickly replaces it.
I’ve written before about how Americans are increasingly drawn to the villain — not despite what he does, but because of the grievance he represents. That dynamic has hardened into something more extreme. People don’t just criticize systems anymore. They reduce them to individuals. They want to target a single face they can blame. And once that happens, that person stops being a person and becomes a symbol. And symbols are easier to hate.
The phrase “social murder” helps make all this sound serious.
&#8220;Friedrich Engels wrote about the concept of social murder,&#8221; Piker <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/22/opinion/shoplifting-political-protest-microlooting-whole-foods.html">told</a> the New York Times this week. &#8220;And Brian Thompson, as the UnitedHealthcare CEO, was engaging in a tremendous amount of social murder. The systematized forms of violence, the structural violence of poverty, the for-profit, paywalled system of health care in this country — and the consequences of that are tremendous amounts of pain, tremendous amounts of violence, tremendous amounts of deaths.&#8221;
This framing gives grievance an intellectual gloss. But in practice, it does something much simpler and much more dangerous. It shifts blame from systems to individuals and then suggests that those individuals deserve what happens to them.
From where I sit as a therapist, this isn’t really about policy. It’s about how people are being conditioned to deal with frustration and disappointment. Increasingly, they’re not being pushed to look inward or take responsibility for their own lives. Instead, they’re being encouraged to look outward, to find someone to blame. To them, the shift is comforting. It explains failure, justifies anger, and removes the burden of self-examination. But it also produces terrible thinking.
Step back for a second. What actually changed in the healthcare system after the killing? Nothing. Costs didn’t drop. Access didn’t improve. Care didn’t get better. The only noticeable change is that executives now have more security around them. That’s it. The only thing that’s been added is violence — and then a set of arguments to explain why it was somehow justified. That’s a very bad way of solving problems.
If your reaction to every problem is to find someone to blame, your solutions will reflect that. And if your solution to perceived harm is to inflict harm, you haven’t solved anything. You’ve simply mirrored the behavior you claim to oppose.
A culture built on validation without challenge creates people who feel perpetually wronged and increasingly entitled to act on that feeling. Over time, the line between understanding behavior and excusing it disappears entirely.
A functioning society depends on a basic distinction: Systems can be flawed, even deeply flawed, and individuals are still responsible for their actions. Lose that distinction, and everything becomes negotiable. The question is no longer, “Is this right?” but, “Who deserves it?”
And that’s a dangerous question.
***
Jonathan Alpert is a psychotherapist in New York City and Washington, D.C., and author of the forthcoming book <a href="https://www.amazon.com/dp/1335000658/?bestFormat=true&amp;k=therapy%20nation&amp;ref_=nb_sb_ss_w_scx-ent-bk-ww_k0_1_14_de&amp;crid=284X1OIYS3NR7&amp;sprefix=therapy%20nation">“Therapy Nation.”</a> Find him on X <a href="https://x.com/JonathanAlpert">@JonathanAlpert</a>.

Fight!

How Grievance Culture Turns Villains Into Heroes

Hasan Piker

A U.S. District Court judge on Wednesday pushed back Luigi Mangione&#8217;s federal trial one month despite the prosecution expressing concerns that any delay could add fuel to Mangione&#8217;s cult following.
Judge Margaret Garnett said the trial&#8217;s start date will move from the beginning of September to October due to “paramount issues” related to Mangione&#8217;s ability to participate in each part of the trial, The New York Times <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/01/nyregion/mangione-weinstein-trial-manhattan.html">reported</a>. Mangione is also facing a state trial in New York over the murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, and the suspect&#8217;s defense team raised concerns that the beginning of the federal trial would overlap with the state trial, which is set to begin in June.
Mangione&#8217;s lawyers asked Garnett to move the federal trial&#8217;s start date to January 2027, but they&#8217;ll now have to accept the one-month delay. Mangione threw a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/luigi-mangione-erupts-in-courtroom-outburst-after-judge-sets-state-trial-date?author=Zach+Jewell&amp;category=News&amp;elementPosition=undefined&amp;row=0&amp;rowType=Vertical+List&amp;title=Luigi+Mangione+Erupts+In+Courtroom+Outburst+After+Judge+Sets+State+Trial+Date">tantrum</a> in state court in February after the judge set his trial date for June.
The prosecution likely isn&#8217;t too pleased with Garnett&#8217;s decision either. Assistant U.S. attorney Dominic Gentile argued before the judge that it was necessary for the federal trial to &#8220;proceed as the court has already scheduled&#8221; because of the concerning wave of support for Mangione. Gentile told the judge that just outside of the courtroom there was a crowd of demonstrators “who follow this defendant and believe what he did was right.”
Mangione has been lifted up as a type of vigilante hero by radical leftists who are incensed by the health insurance industry. Some of Mangione&#8217;s supporters, often donning hats and costumes of the Super Mario Nintendo character Luigi, have gathered outside of the courthouse in New York for each of his court appearances.
<div id="attachment_1070767" style="width: 874px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-1070767" class="wp-image-1070767 size-large" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/04/GettyImages-2255405660-864x576.jpg" alt="" width="864" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/04/GettyImages-2255405660-864x576.jpg 864w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/04/GettyImages-2255405660-300x200.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/04/GettyImages-2255405660-768x512.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/04/GettyImages-2255405660.jpg 1024w" sizes=" (max-width: 864px) 100vw, 864px" />Supporters of Luigi Mangione gather outside of Manhattan Federal Court on January 09, 2026 in New York City. (Photo by Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images)</div>
Thompson, a 50-year-old father and husband, was in New York City for UnitedHealthcare&#8217;s annual investor conference when he was gunned down from behind on December 4, 2024. After arresting Mangione, authorities found a diary on him that included passages raging against the health insurance industry and also contained a line about taking out &#8220;the CEO at the annual parasitic bean counter convention.&#8221;
Garnett said the state trial limits the options for the federal court, stating, &#8220;Whether we like it or not, we are at the will of the state case,&#8221; NBC News <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/luigi-mangiones-federal-trial-unitedhealthcare-ceo-killing-pushed-back-rcna266248">reported</a>.
&#8220;It’s the nature of dual prosecutions,&#8221; she added.
Earlier this year, Garnett threw out the federal murder charge that made Mangione eligible for the death penalty. Attorney General Pam Bondi had directed federal prosecutors to seek the death penalty. Mangione now only faces two stalking charges in the federal case. He faces a charge of second-degree murder in the state case.
Mangione has pleaded not guilty to all charges.

Luigi Mangione Doesn’t Get His Way And One Growing Problem Is Starting To Follow Him

trial

A man accused of murder is now the subject of a musical and the crowds can’t wait.
“Luigi: The Musical,” will debut in New York City this June, just blocks from the scene of United HealthCare CEO Brian Thompson’s murder. The show, first staged in San Francisco, transforms suspected assassin Luigi Mangione into a comic antihero. The New York premiere has sold out. Late-night audiences have cheered at the mention of his name.
Not long ago, political violence — even fictionalized — sparked bipartisan outrage. Today, it sells tickets. And the speed of that shift says more about us than it does about one off-Broadway production.
<div id="attachment_1055155" style="width: 471px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-1055155" class="size-large wp-image-1055155" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/03/Luigi-NYC-461x576.jpg" alt="Source: thegreenroom42/Instagram" width="461" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/03/Luigi-NYC-461x576.jpg 461w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/03/Luigi-NYC-240x300.jpg 240w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/03/Luigi-NYC-768x960.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/03/Luigi-NYC.jpg 1080w" sizes=" (max-width: 461px) 100vw, 461px" />Source: thegreenroom42/Instagram</div>
Pop culture has a way of giving us an eerie snapshot into America’s moral decline.
We could point to Bad Bunny’s over-sexualized Super Bowl halftime show, new media attempts to trans the kids, or Brittany’s new DUI. But also consider the outrage over the 2006 film “Death of a President,” the faux documentary featuring President George W. Bush’s assassination. The film released just as far-Left protesters labeled the president “Hitler” over his War on Terror tactics. The project even drew bipartisan fury from former First Lady Hillary Clinton, who dubbed the film “<a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20061023003633/http:/www.lohud.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=%2F20060916%2FUPDATE%2F609160394">despicable</a>.”
More than a decade later, the culture recoiled over an image of comedian Kathy Griffin holding the bloody head of President Donald Trump. Griffin’s comedy career collapsed overnight, and only in recent years has she returned to the quasi-mainstream. Griffin apologized, but quickly reversed course. Today, no such apology would be required.
Those moments, however, seem almost quaint compared to “Luigi: The Musical.”
The comedy enjoyed brisk sales during its short San Francisco debut last year. The show features Mangione sharing a jail cell with Sean “Diddy” Combs and crypto crook Sam Bankman-Fried.
<div id="attachment_1055173" style="width: 816px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-1055173" class="size-large wp-image-1055173" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/03/Luigi-stage-806x576.jpg" alt="Source: Playbillhttps://playbill.com/article/luigi-mangioni-musical-to-get-nyc-reading" width="806" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/03/Luigi-stage-806x576.jpg 806w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/03/Luigi-stage-300x214.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/03/Luigi-stage-768x549.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/03/Luigi-stage.jpg 970w" sizes=" (max-width: 806px) 100vw, 806px" />Source: Playbill</div>
The production will hit New York City’s Green Room 42 on June 15, 2026. That’s a short subway ride from the scene of Thompson’s cold-blooded murder.
Media reports have depicted “Luigi” in conflicting fashion. Some suggest the show doesn’t glamorize the alleged murderer. Others hint at the opposite, while crowds have been cheering his presence at various shows, <a href="https://nypost.com/2026/03/02/us-news/luigi-mangione-musical-set-to-premiere-on-nyc-stage/">according to The New York Post.</a>
Is it merely dark humor rushing to the surface? Or something more sinister squeezing into our conversations?
The minds behind the musical insist <a href="https://playbill.com/article/luigi-mangioni-musical-to-get-nyc-reading">they’re not advocating violence</a>.
&#8220;Luigi: the Musical uses comedy to bring deeper questions to the surface. Why did this case garner the reaction that it did? And what happens when people stop trusting their institutions?&#8221; Luigi director Nova Bradford said in a statement.
Yet even this kind of cringe theater shouldn’t come as a shock. Nor should the fact that the show <a href="https://www.nysun.com/article/luigi-mangione-musical-sells-out-its-new-york-performance-and-adds-extra-dates">swiftly sold out</a> and added additional dates for its Big Apple debut.
Shortly after the murder, the host of “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” shared how some of his young female staffers had developed a crush on the alleged murderer and his washboard abs. Kimmel flashed screenshots of his <a href="https://www.tvinsider.com/1166115/jimmy-kimmel-luigi-mangione-hot-kiiller-monologue-video/">employees fan-girling over the suspect,</a> 
<blockquote>“People are saying a NY jury has the power to find him innocent, bc we all love him,”
“I’m not mad at him.”</blockquote>
Kimmel and the audience chortled over the revelations, although the host wisely blocked the names of the staffers in question. It still speaks volumes about the show and its fan base.
<div id="attachment_978781" style="width: 858px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-978781" class="size-large wp-image-978781" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/Jimmy-Kimmel-4-848x576.jpg" alt="Jimmy Kimmel" width="848" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/Jimmy-Kimmel-4-848x576.jpg 848w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/Jimmy-Kimmel-4-300x204.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/Jimmy-Kimmel-4-768x522.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/Jimmy-Kimmel-4.jpg 1200w" sizes=" (max-width: 848px) 100vw, 848px" />Randy Holmes via Getty Images</div>
This wasn’t a “Gutfeld!” audience.
And it wasn’t the only comedy showcase lining up on Mangione’s side. “The Daily Show” host Jon Stewart informed his far-Left audience that the alleged killer had been collared by the cops.
The response? The “boos” <a href="https://www.thewrap.com/the-daily-show-unitedhealthcare-shooter-boos-jon-stewart/">rained down</a> on a clearly baffled Stewart. “Look, I’m sorry, guys,” Stewart stammered.
A similarly strange moment came courtesy of “Saturday Night Live.” The NBC show’s ‘Weekend Update’ segment found co-faux anchor Colin Jost dropping Mangione’s name. The comic had to pause the bit to be heard. His audience began clapping and shouting with excitement.
Jost, as stunned as Stewart, blurted out, “Yeah, definitely ‘woo … You’re ‘wooing’ for justice, right?&#8221;
Not even close. And it’s not an accident, either.
<div id="attachment_1055183" style="width: 874px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-1055183" class="size-large wp-image-1055183" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/03/GettyImages-2219109716-864x576.jpg" alt="LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA - JUNE 07: Jon Stewart attends Comedy Central's &quot;The Daily Show&quot; FYC Event at Linwood Dunn Theater on June 07, 2025 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Phillip Faraone/Getty Images for Comedy Central)" width="864" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/03/GettyImages-2219109716-864x576.jpg 864w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/03/GettyImages-2219109716-300x200.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/03/GettyImages-2219109716-768x512.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/03/GettyImages-2219109716.jpg 1024w" sizes=" (max-width: 864px) 100vw, 864px" />Phillip Faraone/Getty Images for Comedy Central</div>
Late-night comedians have leaned into anger and violence for some time now, fueling our culture’s decay. Hosts like Seth Meyers and John Oliver <a href="https://www.hollywoodintoto.com/john-oliver-media-portland-violence/">downplayed</a> the violence raging in Portland, Oregon, during the George Floyd riots of 2020. Stephen Colbert uttered a sexually coarse <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HaHwlSTqA7s">gag aimed</a> at President Donald Trump during the Russian collusion hoax, but he never suffered for the outburst.
More recently, late-night comics chuckled over progressive activists attacking Tesla dealerships to protest owner Elon Musk’s White House maneuvers vis-à-vis DOGE.
Kimmel sarcastically told his crowd to stop the <a href="https://nypost.com/2025/03/19/opinion/democrats-silence-is-damning-as-leftist-violence-explodes/">Tesla-based</a> attacks.
<div id="attachment_1055185" style="width: 394px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-1055185" class="size-large wp-image-1055185" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/03/The-Luigi-actor-384x576.jpg" alt="Source: https://luigithemusical.info" width="384" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/03/The-Luigi-actor-384x576.jpg 384w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/03/The-Luigi-actor-200x300.jpg 200w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/03/The-Luigi-actor-768x1152.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/03/The-Luigi-actor-1024x1536.jpg 1024w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/03/The-Luigi-actor.jpg 1280w" sizes=" (max-width: 384px) 100vw, 384px" />Source: https://luigithemusical.info</div>
Comedy remains subjective. Even the darkest subjects can make us howl or defang hate or bigotry. Just ask Mel “Springtime for Hitler” Brooks.
Consider “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_7eoZt-bUSI&amp;t=152s">Too Soon: Comedy After 9/11</a>,” a sobering documentary about stand-ups who told jokes tied to the terrorist attack mere days after it happened. Comedy can help us process pain and adjust to startling new realities, or it can showcase just how far we’ve fallen as a society.
Context is everything. And it helps to remember an old saw: “Comedy is tragedy plus time.”
Mangione has yet to face a jury of his peers.
Watching patrons gleefully cheer on an alleged murderer is something radically different and frightening. The New York City debut of “Luigi: The Musical” will <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/newyork/news/luigi-mangione-musical-new-york-city-summer/">capture the zeitgeist, no doubt</a>.
Mangione’s real-life New York state trial is slated to begin on June 8, 2026, while his federal trial will have to wait until September.
* * *
Christian Toto is an award-winning journalist, movie critic, and editor of <a href="https://www.hollywoodintoto.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">HollywoodInToto.com</a>. He previously served as associate editor with Breitbart News’ Big Hollywood. Follow him at <a href="https://www.hollywoodintoto.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">HollywoodInToto.com</a>.
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

Luigi II

Brace Yourselves: ‘Luigi: The Musical’

Brace Yourselves: 'Luigi: The Musical'

Broadway

Entertainment

Hollywood

Murder

San Francisco

Luigi Mangione, the man who is accused of gunning down former UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, will not face the death penalty after prosecutors decided not to appeal a Manhattan judge’s ruling.
The Department of Justice said in a <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/newyork/news/luigi-mangione-death-penalty-federal-prosecutors/">letter</a> Friday that it “will not seek interlocutory review” of the judge’s decision.
Last month, U.S. District Judge Margaret Garnett dismissed two of the four charges against Mangione, including use of a firearm to commit murder, which made him eligible for the death penalty.
Garnett said she dismissed the charges “solely to preclude the death penalty as an available punishment when the jury determines if the Defendant caused Brian Thompson’s death,” The Daily Wire <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/federal-judge-says-prosecutors-cant-pursue-death-penalty-against-luigi-mangione">reported</a> at the time.
The federal charge against Mangione that made him eligible for the death penalty accused him of “using a firearm to commit murder in furtherance of a crime of violence.”
In her ruling, Garnett said the stalking offense did not constitute a “crime of violence,” and prosecutors would need to show Mangione killed Thompson while committing another “crime of violence,” NBC <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/luigi-mangione-death-penalty-rcna261080">reported</a>.
Mangione still faces two counts of interstate stalking. If convicted, he would face a maximum sentence of life in prison without parole.
Mangione has pleaded not guilty to all federal and state charges.
U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi previously directed prosecutors to seek the death penalty last year after Mangione was arrested for the murder of Thompson.
“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,” Bondi said at the time.
Thompson was gunned down from behind in Midtown Manhattan on December 4, 2024, as he was walking to a hotel during his company’s annual investor conference. Mangione’s fingerprints allegedly matched those found on shell casings at the murder scene.
Mangione was arrested at a McDonald’s in Altoona, Pennsylvania, following a five-day manhunt, and police found a firearm, suppressor, and what appeared to be a manifesto in the man’s backpack.
Opening arguments for the trial are scheduled to begin in October, with jury selection set for September 8.
In addition to the federal charges, Mangione faces nine counts, including second-degree murder, in a separate state case scheduled to begin June 8, NBC reported.

DOJ Drops Fight For Death Penalty In Luigi Mangione Assassination Case

Courts

Pam Bondi

U.S.

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