Former Washington Post and New York Times tech reporter Taylor Lorenz repeatedly refused to offer outright condemnation of vigilante violence like that allegedly perpetrated by Luigi Mangione against the late UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson.
Lorenz, who faced backlash for her initial reaction to the broad-daylight execution of the insurance executive, joined Fox News host Sean Hannity on Wednesday — and every time he pressed her on the issue, she tried to qualify Thompson’s murder by suggesting that insurance company policies provoked violence.
WATCH:
🔥 Sean Hannity vs Taylor Lorenz! pic.twitter.com/QhDtF5TJeG
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Lorenz sparked outrage when, during an interview with CNN’s Donie O’Sullivan, she laughed off the idea that people were becoming “fans” of the alleged murderer, saying that he was seen as a “revolutionary, who’s famous, who’s handsome, who’s young, who’s smart. He’s a person who seems like he’s this morally good man, which is hard to find.”
She tried to explain her assessment in greater detail to Hannity.
“What I’m describing, and if you watch the full segment, not just the clip, you’ll see that I’m just describing the mentality of these fangirls [who] show up outside Luigi’s court and show up outside his jail cell. Those girls are not me, OK? We have very separate belief systems. But I was describing how they believe,” she said.
But when Hannity pressed her, several times, to either condemn Mangione’s alleged actions or others’ calls for assassinations, Lorenz deflected — and at one point, she joked, “Gosh, you’re gonna ask if I condemn Hamas next. This is insane!”
Hannity repeated his prompt several times, but Lorenz continued to pivot, complaining, “You want to talk about the assassination of innocent people? I believe that the tens of thousands of Americans [who] die each year because of the lack of health insurance. That is, to me, a violence in itself. That is assassination.”
Hannity tried once more, asking if those cheering on the death of another human being — a husband and a father — lacked “a soul, a conscience and a heart.”
“Well, what I will say, Sean, once again, is that I believe in free speech. I don’t believe in things like, you know, religious things like souls and all of these things.”
