Utah Governor Spencer Cox said that the alleged shooter in the killing of right-wing activist Charlie Kirk is “not cooperating” with authorities while in custody.
“He has not confessed to authorities. He is not cooperating, but, all the people around him are cooperating. And I think that’s very important,” Cox said Sunday on ABC’s This Week.
Authorities arrested 22-year-old Tyler Robinson last week in connection with the shooting after his father confronted him with images of the alleged shooter.
“Tyler, is this you? This looks like you,” Robinson’s father asked his son, CNN reported, citing a law enforcement official briefed on the investigation. Robinson, with his father’s encouragement, later turned himself in to police on Thursday night.
Cox said that formal charges will be filed against Robinson on Tuesday.
Asked about reporting by The New York Times that said Robinson exchanged messages with friends on Discord joking about being the alleged shooter after the event.
“All we can confirm is that those conversations definitely were happening, and they did not believe it was actually him. It was, it was all joking until, until he, you know, until he admitted that it actually was him,” he said.
According to the Times, Robinson joked that his “doppelganger” was responsible for the shooting.
Appearing on CNN’s State of the Nation, Cox addressed questions about Robinson’s roommate.
“Some outlets are reporting that the suspect lived with a transgender partner. Is that accurate? And are investigators looking at this part of his life as a possible motivation?” Dana Bash asked Cox.
“I can confirm that. I know that has been reported and that the FBI has confirmed that as well, that the roommate was a romantic partner, a male transitioning to female,” Cox said.
“I can say that he has been very cooperative,” Cox continued, possibly misgendering the roommate. “This partner has been incredibly cooperative, had no idea that this was happening and is working with investigators right now.”
On NBC, Cox added that the roommate “was shocked when they found out about it.”
But when Bash again brought up whether the two were romantically involved, the governor seemed to say that is not confirmed yet: “We’re trying to figure it out. I know everybody wants to know exactly why and point the finger, and I totally get that. I do, too.”
Cox told The Wall Street Journal earlier the shooter was “deeply indoctrinated with leftist ideology.” When Martha Raddatz asked Cox specifically about that comment on Sunday, the governor said that information “has come from his acquaintances and his family members.”
Back on CNN, Cox — who last week after Robinson’s arrest that he had been “praying” that the shooter was “somebody [who] drove from another state, somebody [who] came from another country” — said, “I really don’t have a dog in this fight. If this was MAGA and a radicalized MAGA person, I would be saying that as well. If the friends were saying that, I would be sharing that as well. That’s not what they’re sharing.”
When pressed for specifics about what Robinson said about Kirk to his family, Cox said, “Just not a fan. That’s all I can say.”
Many on the right, including Donald Trump and Cox, have been quick to blame the left for Kirk’s shooting.
Asked for his reaction to Trump’s comments blaming the left, Cox said, “Well, look, President Trump is very angry. And Charlie is his close personal friend. There is a lot of anger — a lot of anger on the right, on my side of the aisle. And I’ve certainly felt that. And in this case, it does appear that that’s true. Again, more information is coming, and we’ll learn more over time. You know, I don’t know that that matters as much as the radicalization piece. I brought up the Democrats who were assassinated recently and how quickly we move on from these things. But the body count is piling up. And so, I’m so concerned about this radicalization piece. And that’s what we’re trying to understand.”
“We also have to figure out how it came to be that a kid with a 4.0, with a 34 on the ACT, with a full-ride scholarship at my alma mater, who didn’t even last a semester, drops out and ends up doing something like this,” Cox concluded. “We need to understand that, and we need to figure out how to stop it.”
Robinson did not register as affiliated with any political party, and his voter records show him as “inactive,” the Times reported, meaning he did not vote in the 2024 presidential election. The real answer about what Robinson believed when he shot Kirk may be far more complex than left or right.
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