What A Day - What Praising The UnitedHealthcare Shooter Says About America

Episode Date: December 13, 2024

The murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson has sparked a massive reaction online that’s veered into support for the alleged shooter, with an outpouring of sympathy on social media. This week we also saw a jury acquit Daniel Penny, a Marine veteran who killed a man named Jordan Neely using a chokehold on a New York Subway train. The verdict prompted a similar outpouring of support for Penny on the right. Suffice it to say, it was a big week for vigilantism. Atlantic staff writer Ali Breland explains what it all says about our political discourse. Later in the show, California Attorney General Rob Bonta joins us to discuss how the state is ‘Trump-proofing’ its progressive laws.And in headlines: President-elect Donald Trump is Time magazine’s ‘Person of the Year,’ President Biden made history by commuting the prison sentences of nearly 1500 people and pardoning another 39, and the federal government says don’t worry about all of those drone sightings over New Jersey.Show Notes:Check out Ali's piece – https://tinyurl.com/543phmv5Subscribe to the What A Day Newsletter – https://tinyurl.com/3kk4nyz8What A Day – YouTube – https://www.youtube.com/@whatadaypodcastFollow us on Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/crookedmedia/For a transcript of this episode, please visit crooked.com/whataday

It's Friday, December 13th. I'm Jane Coaston and this is What A Day, the show that has never claimed to be a billionaire, unlike President-elect Donald Trump's incoming Middle East advisor, who also happens to be the father of Tiffany Trump's husband. It turns out that the company that's been most frequently associated with him, Boulos Enterprises, isn't his. Homestead Among Us hasn't gotten a job because we kind of implied we were super rich

and also our kid married the president's daughter. It happens. On today's show, the White House addresses the drone sightings in the New Jersey night sky and Biden begs your pardon. Let's get into it. After the murder of United Health Care CEO Brian Thompson last week, there was a massive reaction online.

And the reaction was for many people, both on the right and the left, one of, well, support for the alleged shooter. Well, most people made it clear that murder is bad because it is. There were tons of comments, tweets, posts and Instagram captions describing how many people sympathized with someone who, in their view, stood up to the injustice of the American healthcare system the only way he could. And the takes continued after the arrest of the alleged murder suspect, Luigi Mangione. As one commenter put it on a video from the right-wing outlet Daily Wire about the shooting,

quote, everyone is angry at these insurance companies. Another commenter wrote, if you've never lost someone or been plunged into debt because of them, you can't possibly understand. That sentiment was mirrored by Democratic representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. She told a CBS News reporter Thursday that, while she condemned violence, she believed that the ways that some health care companies behave towards patients can be acts of violence, she believed that the ways that some healthcare companies behave towards patients can be acts of violence too. This is not to say that an act of violence is justified, but I think for anyone who is

confused or shocked or appalled, they need to understand that people interpret and feel and experience denied claims as an act of violence against them. People go homeless over the financial devastation of a diagnosis that doesn't get addressed or the amount that they're going to have to cover with a surprise bill and things like that. This week also marked the end of the trial of Daniel Penny, who killed a black homeless man with a history of mental illness named Jordan Neely using a chokehold on a New York City subway train. Penny, a white man, was acquitted of criminally negligent homicide, and while some people

condemned him as a murderer, many people, especially in conservative circles, lauded his actions as heroic. The Wall Street Journal called the verdict hopeful, and an Arizona Republican congressman announced plans to give Penny the Congressional Gold Medal for bravery. Suffice it to say it was a big week for vigilantism, something that worryingly seems to really bring all sides together. That's not new. Americans have long lauded vigilantes they perceive as standing up for truth and justice. But what does it say about where we are right now when two people who committed violent crimes

in the same city are getting support from different wings of our politics? And what could it mean about where we're going? Probably nowhere good. To talk about that, I spoke with Ali Breland. He's a staff writer at The Atlantic, covering the internet, politics, and tech who wrote on the UnitedHealthcare shooting.

Ali, welcome to what a day. Thank you for having me. So what has struck you most about how people are talking about Mangione online? The thing that I kind of noticed that I think everyone has noticed at this point is just how sort of like normal and mainstream the prevailing response to this is like, people really seem to be defending him,

but like normal people, not like political theory cells or like radicals. Especially because he seems to have been up and to a point pretty normal like he very much had the I think someone joked that he had the basic politics of a subscriber to the free press which is a Barry Rice's publication but like you know he was on Goodreads and he was resharing Tucker Carlson videos on occasion and then posting a lot. Exactly. Yeah. I saw someone say that his Goodreads looked like an airport bookstore. It is just like, so he was like a sort of normies normie, like very median content taste,

very median interest. This is not like the weather underground. And you mentioned this in your piece. A lot of the rhetoric that you cite is aimed at the very wealthy, you know, kind of how the extremely wealthy basically deserve to die. But something that struck me is that Mangione himself came from a very wealthy background. What do you think it means when the people who are part of the 1% are the people who also purport to be fighting it? Yeah, there's like a sort of long history of like so-called class traders and I guess like different movements against the rich, the French Revolution famously had like the children of the rich like rebelling. I think that's like kind of standard to almost engage in these kinds of things and kind of

face these consequences. You either have to be from a situation often where like you have almost nothing to lose or where you have a lot of resources and and maybe also not be that afraid of systems. Why do you think we're so interested in the idea of political violence? Presumably violent acts driven by one's closely held political beliefs or beliefs about unjust uses and abuses of power.

Someone was murdered, a person with children was murdered. But there's a sense that it's different because it's political. Political violence is very intriguing to a lot of people because it's a way to sort of understand the currents of the national mood, especially if, in this case, the act of violence is very popular. We just sort of got a window into the national psyche of what's happening, or at least swaths of the national psyche. And that's why it's very interesting.

It indicates what behavior might be okay moving forward and what the trajectory of the country might be. This isn't just one act, this is insight into other acts that could happen and the tenor of what's going on right now in America. In your piece, you liken the actions of Mangione to those of the years of lead in Italy, or even the 1970s in America,

which is something I don't think people know enough about, that according to Time magazine, in a single 18-month period between 1971 and 1972, the FBI counted 2,500 bombings on American soil, nearly five a day. Political violence was very common. What was happening then and what resulted from all of that violence? In the case of Italy, it was a few different things. It's very common. What was happening then, and what resulted from all of that violence? In the case of Italy, it was a few different things. It's very complicated. There was political extremism at both poles.

Neofascism was ascendant, as well as the far left. And then there was economic instability, which Ken often tracked with rises in violence and rises in extremism. And so that produced this decades-long situation in Italy in the years of lead where violence became the norm. And then the seventies too, there was this like sort of very large moment of like relative instability.

Like people like to think about right now how things don't feel good. They feel very unstable. That's true. I wouldn't like sort of poo poo anyone that's like thinking like that. But one thing that I'm actually really interested by isn't just the years of lead, but the sort of like general broader history of political violence. I think that there's this really interesting author,

Peter Turchin, who talks a lot about the ascendancies of like violence in certain societies. And he's created this model that he believes can like sort of predict whether or not violence will become this normalized thing and that we will enter periods of violence or political instability. And so what Turchin found in cases like the years of lead was that they were the product

of sort of elite overproduction and that there was like too many aspirants, sort of elite aspirants going into these like Ivy League colleges or whatever the equivalent was at different points in time trying to like enter institutions and society and enter. And he found that like when there was more aspirants than jobs available, this ended up producing moments of political violence. If you have like a sort of disgruntled population, you will get these moments and that does track with the years of lead and like he argues that right now

we're entering a period where there will be more violence in the 2020s. This kind of thing is being normalized. That was kind of how I was looking at Luigi Mangione's sort of instance. This isn't an aberration. This is potentially the new normal. As I understand it, the goal of political violence is to do something to result in lasting change.

The political violence of the 1970s ended in the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980. The political violence in Italy in the 1960s, 70s, and 80s eventually resulted in a more stable government maybe. So what are your thoughts on that? Because it seems as if political violence is futile. Yeah, I mean, it certainly can be. There's not necessarily like a guarantee that undertaking these actions will produce the outcomes that you want. But I think that these moments happen when people feel like they're backed up against the wall and they feel like maybe there's not other

ways to effectuate change. And you know, many people can debate about whether or not that like actually makes sense. But I think that people feel sometimes they have nothing to lose and that's like how you get these situations. I wanted to ask you because Americans have long had a fascination with vigilantism, whether it's Eric Rudolph, the Olympic Park bomber who also bombed a lesbian bar and an abortion clinic and got a lot of support in some areas of where he was trying to flee from the FBI, or more recently Kyle Rittenhouse, or the Unabomber whose manifesto Mangione read and reviewed on Goodreads.

Why do you think Americans have a specific interest in vigilantes? It goes into the cowboy manifest destiny ethos that undergirds large parts of the country. There's always been this valorization of the individual man who takes things into their own hands. People revere people having power and like acting in these sort of ways where like they have agency and they've taken back

what is sometimes perceived as like a loss of agency or being crushed by larger institutions that you have no power in. And that's like really intoxicating for people. And that's how like violence can become very attractive. It feels more expedient. It feels easier than just like waiting in line to vote for this candidate who maybe

is going to listen to you, but maybe also you know is like getting donations from some larger corporation. But yeah, to your point about like the 70s, that doesn't mean it necessarily ends in the way that people want it to. I thought it was interesting that this week we also saw the acquittal of Daniel Penny who killed Jordan Neely in a choke hold on the New York City subway. It was a moment in which some people referred to him as being a vigilante.

He's been, I think, called a hero in some circles, but others see him as a murderer. It seems like each political side in America, or however you see that, has a vigilante of their own. Yeah, there's certainly a lot of symmetry. I think that the difference, I would say, between Penny and Luigi Mangione is that Mangione certainly, I guess he's a little bit more of a hero to the left,

but it was very interesting to the degree to which there was almost this near bipartisan consensus and appreciation of him. People like Ben Shapiro and Matt Walsh, certainly conservatives spoke out against him, but even their fans flooded the comments to say, actually, I kind of think that what this guy did was pretty tight. Whereas like I don't think anyone on the left really feels that way about Penny. But yeah, I would be hesitant to compare them too much. Like it does feel coincidental in that Penny, he didn't have a premeditated plan for his action. He was just caught up in a situation. But yeah.

Ali, thank you so much for being here. This has been really helpful. Thank you for having me. I really appreciate it. That was my conversation with Ali Breland. He's a staff writer at the Atlantic covering the Internet, politics and tech. We'll get to more of the news in a moment, but if you like the show, make

sure to subscribe, leave a five star review on Apple Podcasts, watch us on YouTube and share with your friends. More to come after some ads. And now the news. Donald Trump was showered with flattery on Thursday. He got to ring the opening bell at the New York Stock Exchange, and he was named Time Magazine's Person of the Year for the second time.

Speaking before he rang the bell and standing in front of a huge picture of his Time Magazine cover because of course he was, Trump talked about, among other things, nuclear weapons? I hated to do it. Actually, I hated to do it. Actually, I hated to do it. But we did some nuclear weapons that are so devastating and almost makes you very sad when you, as you get them and as they come online. It makes you very sad because you know what the purpose of them is

and you just hope to God that you never have to use them. Because if you do, the world will never be the same. So we have to be very, very smart. world will never be the same. So we have to be very, very smart. We have to be very sharp. We have to be very special. Four years of this. Four years.

Trump also said a lot about his priorities for his next term in his Time magazine interview. He admitted that he might not be able to bring grocery prices down. He told Time, quote, "'It's hard to bring things down once they're up. Sure. Trump said the debate over which bathroom trans people can use is less important than other issues. He said, quote, We're talking about a very small number of people, and we're talking

about it, and it gets massive coverage, and it's not a lot of people. This is where we remind you that Trump's campaign spent tens of millions of dollars on anti-trans ads ahead of the election. Massive coverage indeed. Trump also said his administration could get rid of some vaccination requirements for kids, and brought up long-demunct claims linking vaccines to autism. He said, quote, We're going to have a big discussion. I am hoping that,

we're going to have a big discussion is joining, we're going to be looking at that very strongly, and the pantheon of things Trump says that mean nothing is ever going to happen. President Joe Biden made history on Thursday when he commuted the prison sentences of nearly 1,500 people and pardoned 39, a one-day record for a U.S. president. Pardons and commutations are not the same thing. Pardons are an expression of the president's forgiveness of a federal crime and can end a person's sentence and reinstate their rights.

A commutation changes someone's sentence. Biden put out a statement saying that those who were granted clemency were convicted of nonviolent crimes, most of them low-level drug offenses. White House Press Secretary Corrine Jean-Pierre spoke to reporters on Thursday about the historic act. Today's actions build on the president's record of criminal justice reform to help reunite families, strengthen communities, and reintegrate individuals back into society. It's customary for outgoing presidents to grant clemency before leaving the White House. Biden said he will continue reviewing clemency petitions in the coming weeks. Biden and his lawyers reportedly

considering granting preemptive pardons to officials Trump has deemed his enemies to shield them from prosecution after the transfer of power. Louisville Mayor Craig Greenberg announced an agreement with the Department of Justice Thursday to reform the city's police force. The consent decree comes after an investigation last year into the 2020 police killing of Breonna Taylor. It found the department discriminated against black residents. Taylor's mother, Tameka Palmer, told reporters she's not sure Louisville will comply with the terms of the new agreement. I haven't been very confident. I mean, I'm on the other side of this thing. My daughter lost her life to get here, so I'm not very confident.

I'm here for it, though. Taylor was killed when police executed a no-knock warrant and entered her apartment in 2020. Taylor's boyfriend shot at police. He said he believed that they were intruders. Police returned fire, killing Taylor. In the wake of her death, Louisville banned no-knock warrants. As part of the agreement, Louisville committed to overhaul training and will implement de-escalation

policies. A federal officer will monitor the progress made by the city. The consent decree must be approved by a judge. For weeks now, hundreds of drone sightings over New Jersey have left residents and authorities baffled. All across the state, mysterious lights have been hovering in the sky at night and nobody knows what they are or where they came from. A New Jersey official said the drones are up to six feet in diameter. Recreational drones are illegal in New Jersey, but that is way bigger than the kind hobbyists fly.

John Kirby, White House National Security Communications Advisor, told reporters at a White House press briefing Thursday the, told reporters at a White House press briefing Thursday that drones don't pose a national security threat. It appears that many of the reported sightings are actually manned aircraft that are being operated lawfully. The United States Coast Guard is providing support to the state of New Jersey and has confirmed that there is no evidence of any foreign-based involvement from coastal vessels. Kirby also said that there have been no reported sightings in restricted airspace. Still, I've seen movies and I do not like where this is going.

And that's the news. One more thing. January 20th, Trump's inauguration day, is right around the corner. I'm dreading it. You're dreading it. I get it. It's a scary time. But, something that gives me hope is how the last Trump presidency energized and mobilized people to resist. Because it turns out millions of people didn't vote for this. And all across the country

people came together to take care of each other and fight for each other. And a lot of those battles happened in the courtroom. During Trump's first term the state of California sued him over 120 times. That's an average of just about once every 12 days. And a lot of those lawsuits were successful. California defended their clean air rules, kept DACA on the books, and protected the Affordable Care Act. But Project 2025 is terrifying, and there's a chance that this time Trump will be more organized

and ready to push back against these legal battles. He's even threatened California specifically. To hear more about how the state is preparing for these fights, I talked to California Attorney General Rob Bonta. Attorney General Bonta, welcome to What a Day! Thank you for having me. Grateful to be here. So what does a second Trump presidency mean for California?

What is it specifically that you're worried about? We want to ensure that in California we continue to have things that we fought for over many decades like environmental protections, common sense gun safety laws, robust reproductive freedom and protection and support and valuing of our immigrants. And based on Trump 1.0 and based on what he said he will do, those in his inner circle said he will do, and what Project 2025 says he will do, there will be tension between the things he wants to do and the progress that we're making. And we are absolutely committed to staying on our same path of progress. Can you tell me how you're preparing to fight back against the Trump administration and protect Californians. We have been preparing for months, in some cases years.

And so we have briefs on nearly every issue that has been signaled and telegraphed by the Trump administration, where we just need to dot the i's, cross the t's, press print, and file it to seek an injunction based on the legal arguments that we have already put together in assessing some of his actions. So our job is to hold him accountable if and when he breaks the law and make sure that we have a president who is law abiding and follows the law. You would think that it wouldn't be too much to ask, and yet here we are now. So how do you anticipate Trump pushing back against what you're thinking about doing?

I know he's made a ton of threats about California specifically. What can and what can't he do? I think he'll try to withhold funding from California, like emergency and disaster relief funding. I think he'll try to condition funding on California taking a different approach on a policy issue, like sanctuary state status. And that has been already deemed unlawful. And I think he comes at this as a CEO who's barking orders and wants things done the way he wants things done, regardless of the Constitution and federal law.

And so that's where we come in and the courts come in to only exercise the authority that he's allowed to exercise under the law of the Constitution. Last question. We have listeners who are across the country, but also across California who want to help push back against whatever Trump is trying to do. How can our listeners help to help you fight Trump's agenda? One of the silver linings, if there was one, in Trump 1.0, and it exists here as well, is people can own their own power, raise their own voice. Everyone has that agency, that ability to step up, to get engaged, to organize, to activate, to be involved in shaping our future. That's one thing I learned from my days at the United Farm Workers of America when my

parents were working there and I was a child, which is that we don't have to accept the unacceptable. We have agency and power to make tomorrow more fair, more just, full of more opportunity and equity than today if we work at it, if we get involved. So the folks who are feeling the way you've described can get involved with immigration groups or environmental protection groups

or work with their leaders on bill ideas or go to city council meetings and make their views known. There's untold numbers of ways that people can get involved, but the most important thing is to be engaged and activated. Attorney General Bonta, thank you so much for joining me. That was my conversation with California Attorney General Rob Bonta. [♪ music playing, fades out. Before we go, from gripping hidden histories to investigating mysterious deaths, Crooked's Limited Series are your ultimate road trip or cozy couch companions.

Unravel the mystery of a prominent judge's death and killing justice? Follow the shocking transformation of a Chinese civil rights activist into a MAGA Trump supporter in Dissident at the Doorstep, or dive into the hidden history of America's largest police force with Empire City, the untold origin story of the NYPD, named one of the top podcasts of 2024 by Time Magazine, Vulture, and the New York Times. Escape the chill this holiday season and binge your way through our most captivating series. Find them at Crooked.com slash Limiteds or wherever you get your podcasts. That's all for today. If you like the show, make sure you subscribe, leave a review. Remember that Time's Person of the Year is not exactly always

complimentary and tell your friends to listen. And if you're into reading and not just about past winners of Time's Person of the Year, which in 2006 was you, yes, you, because sure, like me, What a Day is also a nightly newsletter. Check it out and subscribe at Crooked.com slash subscribe. I'm Jane Coaston, and I'm just saying Richard Nixon was Person of the Year in 1972. He was. It happened. What a Day is a production of Crooked Media. It's recorded and mixed by Desmond Taylor. Our associate producer is Raven Yamamoto. Our producer is Michelle Eloy. We had production help today from Tyler Hill, Johanna Case, Joseph Dutra,

Greg Walters, and Julia Claire. Our senior producer is Erica Morrison, and our executive producer is Adrian Hill. Our theme music is by Colin Gillyard and Kashaka.