Transcript of Why is the internet obsessed with Luigi Mangione? | BBC Americast

Mariana, there's so much news in America this week. In Washington, we've been covering the developments in Syria. We've been watching appointments to the Trump administration. But the only story we're really all talking about among ourselves, to be honest, whenever we gather around the kettle, is the suspected UnitedHealthcare shooter in New York, Luigi Mangione. First of all, the manhunt for him and then everything we've discovered about him since he was arrested, it is gripping.

Yeah. And he's not just been the talk of Washington DC from the Sons of It Sarah. He's also been the talk of social media. I mean, you almost cannot move for the amount of posts and content about, about this man, everything from people digging up, his own kind of, social media profiles, the kinds of stuff he's been reading and reviewing, but then also, different people posting their takes and views about what's happened, abuse targeting people in McDonald's who spotted him, you know, you name it. Everything is unfolding online.

So, it feels like it's a very appropriate topic for today's episode.

Welcome to AmeriCast.

AmeriCast. AmeriCast from BBC News.

Hello. It's Sarah here. I have actually flown back to Scotland, and I'm talking to you from Edinburgh.

It's Anthony. I'm still here in Washington DC in the BBC Bureau.

And it is Mariana in the worldwide headquarters of AmeriCast in London.

So we're gonna go through this story that's, got all of us so gripped and look at, well, firstly, what's actually been going on, what's true about what's happened, but mostly at the reaction to it because it's been surprising in some places actually shocking what people have been saying about this shooting, but also what it reveals about America, American society, its health care, but also its attitudes to each other. So before we get to all of that, though, let's go through something of a timeline of exactly what it was that unfolded, first of all, in New York this week.

Yeah. So some people might be quite familiar now with the CCTV footage that showed that moment where, Brian Thompson was shot, close to the Hilton Hotel in New York. And people have poured over not just the footage that showed, this moment where the suspect, you know, pulled out a gun and shot him at pretty close range, but then the images that were subsequently released by the police, showing, the suspect with his mask pulled down. There were suggestions he'd been sort of flirting with someone in a hostel, and that's where that picture had come from. There were also images that seemed to show him, visiting a Starbucks at some point.

And so as is often the case now, when anything big happens, the Internet sleuths kinda got to work trying to unpick and analyze what was going on here. And I think kind of initially, there was that feeling, Sarah and Anthony, that the this was a kind of was it a serious operation? Was it a kind of trained assassin? What what what was going on here? Particularly because it several days before there was any news at all about who this person might be.

I mean, the the closed circuit TV video was pretty cold blooded. I mean, he walked up, took dead aim, shot him in the back, and then walked over afterwards and shot him several more times before calmly running away. He actually has gun jammed at 1 point. He unjammed it also. All of it looked very, very smooth.

It's not the kind of thing you would expect from someone who had never killed a person before, and I think that may be why, some of the people were speculating that this was a a hired hit. Although to do it in a busy city, midtown Manhattan, where all of these cameras are, it wasn't long before, as you mentioned, all of these different videos started, surfacing. They knew he ran into Central Park, to to elude, the immediate, investigation. They found a backpack that they suspected, was his in Central Park full of monopoly money. They knew that that the suspect may have come to New York City on a bus that originated in Atlanta, and then it was, only a matter of time before they put out a I think it was a $50,000 reward, and began expanding the net to try to track him down.

It was days though before he was found. And although he did do this, just brazenly in the middle of the street in Midtown Manhattan, he then escaped. He disappeared into Central Park. The police couldn't find him. And all through the weekend, for instance, every time I went out to a Christmas party or whatever, firstly, it's all anyone was talking about.

With this kind of slight sense that people were rooting for him, they didn't want to say it necessarily because you don't want to condone a murder like that. But there was a bit of a sense that, you know, maybe the longer he could stay out there, it somehow made for a braver tale of daring do. Once we probably had excluded the idea that he was a professional hitman, the idea that he was just, you know, an amateur who had planned this so well using a fake ID to check into the hostel and to to travel to Manhattan in the first place. Yeah. And as you say, Anthony, the way in which he cleared the blockage in the gun made it look as though this was somebody who wasn't unfamiliar with firearms.

So it built up this astonishing mysterious picture of somebody who didn't look like a rank amateur, but at the same time didn't appear to be a a higher professional. And therefore, that's the point at which people were speculating about the motive and the fact that the victim was the chief executive officer of this huge, health care insurance company, UnitedHealthcare, 1 of the biggest in America, and 1 that had been a bit controversial for refusing people's health claims. He'd been called up in front of Congress to talk about that, sometime earlier. That just put together this story that everybody was fascinated by.

And like you kind of mentioned there, Sarah, there was this period of time where, people were some people were kind of trying to unpick these clues and decipher them and decide what they meant. There were, you know, all over TikTok, for example, I was seeing lots of these videos on the undercover voters' social media feeds, but on my own feed as well. There were people who were kind of saying, well, let's sort of protect the assassin. We don't want we don't want him to be found, because, you know, we are also angry about, the situation around health insurance in the United States. And so there was kind of that conversation ongoing, and it felt like this yeah.

It felt like a real moment when the news broke that a person of interest, Luigi Mangione, the kind of, alleged suspected assassin here, had been found in McDonald's in Pennsylvania with all of the stuff, like, with this ghost gun, with, seemingly with some some fake ID as well. And it kind of felt like I I guess it continued this arc that this is we're almost like a film, and I think that's why people online particularly have been poring over this because you almost couldn't make it up, the kind of story here.

And he was found with this this ghost gun. And what a ghost gun is essentially, is a a gun that has been manufactured, independently, apart from a a gun manufacturer that has to register and put down a serial number on it, and therefore can't be traced in the way that a traditionally created and sold gun would. You have to register the gun. You can trace it to the manufacturer. You can trace it to the person who sold it.

A ghost gun, is 1 that doesn't have those markings. That and there's actually an a growing number of companies that, produce and sell ghost gun kits. So they sell the parts of a gun that aren't completely easy to assemble. You might have to drill a little bit. You might have to do a few things to put it together, but it's a loophole around these, federal gun laws, that allows them to not have to put a serial number on it.

So, actually, they found shell casings around the scene of the crime, and on those shell casings were written the words deny, defend, and depose. Those are, tactics that insurance companies, big insurance companies, use to avoid paying out claims or delay paying out claims, to people who are seeking compensation for health care expenses. It's 1 of the big criticisms of the American health care industry, that in order to maximize their profits, they, they tend to try to deny claims and question the legitimacy of claims and take these, claims to court, where they can battle them out, in order to, to increase their profits. And that clearly was something that was on the mind of the alleged assailant who who wrote those on the bullet casings wanted this to be found.

Even the way that Mangione was found was like something out of a movie. He'd traveled several hours away from Manhattan. He was in Altoona, Pennsylvania sitting in a McDonald's having something to eat when some of the other customers in there were saying to themselves, he looks just like the guy in the photographs and ended up calling the police. And in fact, 1 of those eyewitnesses ended up speaking to the BBC about that moment.

A guy came in the door, and I didn't really look at him. I thought it was everyone was kidding around. Well, the 1 guy said, that looks like the shooter from New York. Well, then we lapped, and I he I guess he placed his order, and we just went on about our business. But we were kidding about it.

They were like, wouldn't that be something? You know?

And as you can imagine, the Internet responded pretty wildly to to all of this as well. Everything around the kind of McDonald's scenario. And not only have there been conspiracy theories of people saying, hang on a second. How was this guy able to, you know, escape New York, and no 1 even was talking about what his name was, and then he kinda just got found in McDonald's with all the evidence. What does this mean?

Has he been set up? All these kinds of stuff, often unevidenced claims and theories. Ranging from that to people then also trying to identify who the McDonald's worker was or the person in McDonald's who who had kind of tipped off the police, and people leaving reviews on that particular McDonald's, and, also sending abuse, hate threats, to the person they believe was responsible for for reporting, him because they are supportive, in some ways of what he's been doing. So it's been a sort of real social media frenzy in that way, which we often see happen with these kinds of stories, I I guess, not least because this 1 kind of is so cinematic for want of a better word, or it's 1 that's really kind of gripped people's attention. But at its heart, as as we've been talking about, you know, someone has been killed in broad daylight in, New York, which is a pretty big deal and someone who's kind of pretty important and influential as well.

Yeah. Americans love true crime stories. I mean, that's the reality. Right? We've talked about this before with other cases where someone's killed.

There's a a a manhunt. There's a search. These amateur sleuths like to get in and try to piece together all the clues. And then, of course, the health care, the health insurance component of this. This is something that touches every American's lives.

We all have to deal, with, big health insurance companies in 1 time or another in 1 way or another. Many of us are often frustrated by it. So add those 2 components. You could see why this is such a a compelling story for people to follow. And we did hear from Angioni.

Actually, now as they were bringing him into the courtroom, he shouted and what he said was picked up by the cameras who were there.

Yeah. It's not abundantly clear what is an insult to the intelligence, the American people that he's shouting about there, but, of course, that's sort of somehow, added to this antihero gloss that he's got.

Yeah. And a bit like whenever, you know, whenever now there is any kind of shooting or attack, people will very, very quickly kind of pour over the social media profiles of the people involved and try and, get some clues, even more clues in this situation as to as to what's happened and what motivated them and and why it unfolded or what that what's suspected of driving, what happened. And so very, very quickly after, the arrest happened, people went and found, Luigi Mangione's account on x. The background image on that, for example, believed to show him and then also an x-ray of his spine, and the suggestion that he perhaps was suffering from back pain or some kind of back injury. That's something that, his friends have also confirmed to US media.

They've said that he had some surgery and suggested that he'd had difficulty with with his back. And then if you look at his Reddit's account, you you can find other clues, where, again, he does seem to be talking about kind of chronic back pain, brain fog, other issues relating to that. People have been looking at some of the books that he was reading as well, some relating again to the issue of back pain. So, it it really sort of has been, fuel for the amateur sleuths as you describe them, Anthony, to be able to kind of pour over and feel like they're solving the mystery because they've got lots of this kind of digital footprint in front of them.

He lived very much online, so it wasn't really hard to find all these bread crumbs, to find things that he had posted, things he had said online. He had a computer engineering background as well, so he also was very, adroit technologically. Another thing to notice that he he has come from, an upbringing of privilege, a wealthy family in Baltimore, Maryland, which is about 45 minutes an hour north of Washington DC. Here, he went to Ivy League Schools, University of Pennsylvania. His members of, fraternities there, generally considered to be a an an intelligent guys.

His family owned a country club. His family owned a radio station in Baltimore. They did have the resources to provide him with, with the kind of care he needed.

Yeah. And what we do know about Luigi Mangione, at least right now, is is that he is planning to fight extradition, from Pennsylvania to New York. His lawyers have said it's his constitutional right, and we've had, I've had loads of messages about this story, and we've, Americaasters have been getting in touch too. And we've had this question from JD via WhatsApp who asks, news outlets are reporting that the suspect in custody in Pennsylvania is fighting extradition to New York. Can you explain this?

In what circumstances could he be extradited, or could they charge and try him in Pennsylvania for crimes committed in New York? The sentence is likely to be different.

You gotta remember, each state has its own, criminal code, its own court system, its own jurisdiction. And so what you see on these sorts of things is typically 1 state will send it to the state where the crime is committed, and that's where it will be, tried while Mangione's lawyers may object to this. So this isn't like extraditing someone from Brazil. This is a neighboring state. It's only a matter of time before he gets sent back to New York, and tried there.

Apparently, he's been charged with second degree murder at this point. 2nd degree murder, actually, there are different degrees of murder. 2nd degree means it wasn't a premeditated act. Typically, it's something that was done, in during an an a commission or, the act of another crime. Like, if you rob a bank and you shoot someone, that's second degree murder.

1st degree is where you plan it out. I wouldn't be surprised to see that charge ultimately change to first degree murder because, at least based on what we're hearing, about the the the alleged crime and the preparations behind it just from what we've seen and the the evidence presented, that seems premeditated. But, again, I'm not a lawyer. I'm not the prosecutors in New York, so we'll have to wait and see how how this all plays out. But I think you would see him end up in a New York courtroom before too long.

Beyond the fascination with Luigi Mangione himself and the the true crime aspects of this story, what this has also done is spark a whole new conversation in America about the health care system. There's a lot of controversy about how many people have been commenting on social media in support of, what he is alleged to have done. And it's not just, you know, comments on x or something. There have been op ed pieces written, various different columnists, saying that this is, if not justified, at least very least, unsurprising that somebody would finally take action against 1 of the health care companies. And even though we don't know what happened to Luigi Mangione himself, we are hearing more and more stories as a result about people who have really suffered as a result of claims being denied or delayed, not just with UnitedHealthcare with all the big insurance.

But it feels as though it's starting a conversation about what's wrong with health care in America, but 1 that may not go any further than every conversation that always starts about trying to institute some kind of gun control in America. Anthony, presumably, this happens cyclically. Every so often, people say the health care system doesn't work, and then nothing happens.

Yeah. I mean, things did happen, in about 14 years ago, with the Obama administration. There was a pretty massive government attempt to, to regulate private health insurance. Because you have to remember, the American health system, is mostly privately run for profit health insurance for at least people who are, working in America. The you don't get government, run health insurance until you, get Medicare, which is the elderly health insurance program.

I think you have to be 65 to qualify for that. Or if you're very poor, and then there's a government run health insurance, Medicaid, that covers people, who are poor. But most people get their health insurance in the United States through their employers through these for profit companies. And, and so you end up, working with for profit companies. And so there are periodically attempts to reform the system, and there have been some successful attempts to reform the system.

But, clearly, even what was done in the Obama administration wasn't enough to to to make people happy with the way health, the health system in this country runs. So all the money that is spent, on on health insurance in in this country, and despite that fact, the the the American people, have been getting sicker, less healthy over the past 10 years than, than instead of getting healthier.

Whenever I interface with the American health care system, it it it absolutely blows my mind some aspects of it. So firstly, you get much more care. I'm forever being sent off for scans and x rays and all sorts of diagnostic treatments that you really wouldn't get, quite so easily or quite so quickly on the NHS. But then every so often, the insurance company does mess up a bit, and I'll get sent a bill for something that they're meant to have covered. Now usually, it's not that difficult to sort out, and unfortunately, touch wood up until this point, I haven't been really sick whilst I've been in the United States.

But they'll send me a bill for, I mean, maybe just taking routine blood tests for your annual checkup, and it'll be over $1,000 that they want, paid for that. And, of course, a few phone calls and a couple of letters later, you get it sorted out, and I don't have to pay that out of my own pocket. It comes out of the insurance. But every time I see 1 of these things, my joy is on the table thinking, how can you charge $1,000 for some routine blood test? No wonder this industry is, you know, is so huge and so hated.

Yeah. I I run this all the time. I think every American has stories, you know, whether it's my son going to an emergency room and then not immediately being covered because he went to an emergency room in a different state, and there's questions about the insurance company covering that. When my my child was younger, we used to have to get reauthorized, for to see a a a back doctor, an orthopedist, a pediatric orthopedist within our city because the insurance company wanted us to drive 2 and a half hours to an in network provider, in Houston, which is, you know, a a a separate city from Austin, because that that was who they thought was the closest person. And we every year, we had to fight, every year on the day, the 1st of the year, have to fight to get that insurance company to cover the local doctor that was 15 minutes away instead of the 1 that was, 2 and a half hours away.

And these are stories, that are not unique to me, and, certainly, I think a lot of Americans understand that just grappling with these vast bureaucracies that have a a predisposition, in in part to not paying out because that's how they make money. They don't wanna spend all of this money. They wanna verify that the money is being spent in the right place in their views, but this profit motive does I think in the view of many Americans, it does corrupt the system. It does make the system more inclined to side with the insurance company rather than the patient.

And, actually, what you're both describing there is is essentially what a lot of people on social media have been talking about. This very sort of gripping narrative and story, even though, obviously, at the heart of it is, you know, someone being killed, and is is a really kind of tragic story. It it's really, really sparked a conversation in this way with people then talking about their own experiences, and and in some ways, to to the shock of, quite a few people, and perhaps not to the shock of quite a few other people, celebrating really what's happened. I mean, there's even people selling, like, T shirts, merchandise, stuff like that online with those words deny, defend, depose in support of Luigi Mangione, and that or in support of what he's suspected of of doing and and playing a part in. And I think that just tells you about I mean, we've seen that kind of glorification happen all the time around murder or crimes that have been committed.

But this this story in particular, and I guess what's gonna unfold in terms of the the case and what happens, is 1 that's gonna continue to grip Americans both online and in the real world in the conversations that they're having.

Yeah. And that's why you've got people like democratic politicians who might be sympathetic to the conversation we've just been having about some of the problems that there are with the major health insurers coming out to to stamp very hard on the idea that this guy is any kind of hero or that his actions should be defended. I mean, he was arrested in Pennsylvania, and the governor there, Josh Shapiro, condemned that reaction at the briefing that announced the arrest.

You know, okay. So that's Shapiro's take, but there are others like Elizabeth Warren, a progressive senator from Massachusetts who, on 1 hand, condemned the violence, but also said she understood it.

And as is so often the case when there are these kinds of frenzies on social media, you know, asides from, people who feel really let down and have had terrible experiences in terms of their health insurance, again, beyond any specific company, but in general, There's also obviously, a person who's been killed here, Brian Thompson. We know that he joined UnitedHealth Group in 2004, and he's worked his way right up to to the top. He previously served as the CEO of the company's government programs, including Medicare and retiree coverage. And I guess because there's been so much focus on, Luigi Mangione and people unpicking and and trying to piece together what's happened, and who he is, there's perhaps been a bit less of a conversation about Brian Thompson himself. But his his wife, did speak to CBS News, Paulette Thompson, and she said that Brian was an incredibly loving, generous, talented man who truly lived life to the fullest and touched so many lives.

Most importantly, Brian was an incredibly loving father to our 2 sons and will be greatly missed.

And that's what must not get lost in all of this. This was a husband and father who, you know, was gunned down in the street in cold blood, and that, to a certain extent, with some of the excitement around, the alleged shooter, has fallen off the agenda a little bit. And and, in fact, it's worried other CEOs so much that some of them have been paying for security, changing their daily routines, taking their photographs off their company websites, worried that this is not even necessarily just about health care, that there's some kind of anti corporate, anti capitalist feeling underlying in America that could put any of them at danger.

And that shouldn't come as a huge shock. I like this, Andy, establishment, trend in American society is is been very obvious, and we've talked about it in the past. People feel like the system and not just the health care system, but the system, whether it's governments, corporations, institutions, aren't working for them, anymore. And that has lee reaching, a boiling point, and I think there's the concern, the very valid concern, that that boiling point might include violence.

And that's quite a uniquely American response to this sort of thing. I mean, fury at capitalism at the establishment of the system that isn't working for everybody, that's a fairly universal experience at the moment, and we see that playing out in different elections in different countries. But the idea that to assuage that frustration, you reach for a weapon isn't something you see in that many other places. Always makes me feel that America is such a young society in so many ways and and just not that far removed from the pioneer spirit that set it up, which did involve a lot of violence at the time. Because you can imagine in Europe people taking what they would think would be drastic actions to, you know, handcuff themselves to the front of the UnitedHealthcare building and go on a hunger strike or, you know, cover the executives in red paint or take on various other, kinds of protests, maybe stop all the traffic in central Manhattan to draw attention to their cause, but not to reach for a weapon and murder somebody.

That doesn't happen in that many countries.

I also think there's that there's that this element of of social media, I guess, from from my point of view and the stuff I look at, which is that, you know, people have always been, often, they've often rallied around particular causes, perhaps would have gone out and and protested or felt very strongly about a particular incident or a particular issue. But there's something about the ability of social media to, amplify individual stories like this, which are very, very gripping, which the algorithms, the recommendation systems will kind of further push into people's feeds because because they are gripping and they make you kind of sit up and and take notice. And the ability to kind of create an an online movement that can kind of dehumanize, I guess, the the people involved and makes it feel a bit like a true crime film. This feels like the kind of perfect storm online in terms of a story that that has ignited a conversation about something that people care about, but that ultimately, at its heart is is about is about violence, and, could have pretty far reaching consequences in terms of what it means for the people who who both support what's happened and who don't support it.

There's a long line in American history going back to Bonnie and Clyde and Billy the Kid of antiheroes of people taking, taking the law into their own hands or or fighting the system and and being celebrated, for being, being becoming cult heroes because of it. So, I guess we shouldn't be surprised. I think you're right, Sarah. I think there is something ingrained in the American character, that they the the this kind of, this, this western out outdoors violence, vigilante kind of spirit that that comes from the fact that, you know, a a lot of American society was rough for a while. This was a a country that was settled by people and and settled in places where there was no established law.

So, that may contribute to to a bit of our our our our celebration of this instance as well.

And also individualism in America that instead of thinking somebody should do something about this, Americans think I should do something about this, which in some circumstances can be fantastic. It's just in some circumstances it can end in violence and tragedy, sadly. But it's a strain of the American spirit, which in in in many ways can be laudable. But it's also worth mentioning, I think, the other thing that makes this kind of uniquely American is if this had happened in the UK, we would not be able to have this conversation. We would, know Luigi Mangione's name.

We would be able to say that he had been arrested, and that he'd been charged with second degree murder, and that would be about it. All this trailing through his social media history, interviews with people who knew him or family members, none of that would have been able to be broadcast or put in the, newspapers because there would be reporting restrictions clamped right down on that. But the freedom of speech in America means that you can tell these stories even while the wheels of justice are turning.

So I guess, from here, we're gonna expect, Mangione to be sent to New York. He's going to be, brought to a courtroom. The charges are gonna be presented against him. We might hear more from his lawyers. I think a a lot of our listeners are now familiar with the American judicial system.

At some point, this will, reach a trial, which I'm sure Sarah and Mariana will be a circus, like many of the high profile trials in this in this country unless something happens in the intervening months. But this is just the beginning of what should be a a a long legal process where we have a chance to see more of this story and get more details and maybe even hear more from Mangione himself.

Now while you're all getting ready for, Christmas or the holidays, as they're known in America, America, you might have started to mull over New Year resolutions. We've got something different on our mind here. We're starting to think up what predictions we are gonna put in the 2025 time capsule. This year, we want you to tell us what we should be making suggestions and predictions about. So write in or get in touch with us and tell us what you want us to be gazing into our crystal balls and coming up with, and I guess you can probably come up with the most difficult questions that will humiliate us the most when we open the 2025 time capsule this time next year.

And as ever, it's all the usual ways of getting in touch. You can send us a WhatsApp on plus 44-330-123-9480. You can email americast@bbc.co.uk, and you can join our Discord server. The link is in the description.

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