'Very Touching' Text Messages
Plus: Fed rate cut, Luigi watch, Hep B vaccination changes, and more...
How Robinson was caught: Tyler Robinson, the 22-year-old suspect in the murder of conservative pundit Charlie Kirk as he was speaking on Utah Valley University's campus, initially evaded the FBI. But, per charging documents in the case, his mother recognized him via the CCTV pictures released, and called him to ask where he'd been that day; she conferred with his father, who grew suspicious that the description of the rifle used in the shooting matched a rifle Robinson had been given as a gift. According to the Robinson parents' account to investigators, their son had grown more political over the past year and "more pro-gay and trans-rights oriented," having frequent disagreements with them, especially his father.
Robinson, after being repeatedly contacted by his parents, indicated to them that he was suicidal; they convinced him to come to their family home in Washington, Utah, and the parents contacted a family friend who is a retired deputy sheriff who helped call the proper authorities. The retired deputy drove all three Robinsons to Hurricane, Utah, where the sheriff's office is, and investigators met them there.
Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty.
Alleged text messages between Robinson and his romantic partner: These really don't seem real to me, but they were in the charging documents released yesterday by the Utah authorities. Is this how 22-year-olds really text? Robinson seems so bizarre—relatively recently radicalized, not totally estranged from a loving family.
Robinson wrote to his roommate/romantic partner about how the messages on his bullets were "mostly a big meme" and about how he'll hear the "notices bulge" thing on Fox News. pic.twitter.com/mFhvSqk9Fa
— Aric Toler (@AricToler) September 16, 2025
Some, like ABC's Matt Gutman, appear rather enchanted with Robinson and these text messages:
DISGUSTING: ABC's Matt Gutman says he's not sure "if we have seen an alleged murder with such specific text messages" that were "very touching, in a way, that I think many of us didn't expect — a very intimate portrait into this relationship between the suspect's roommate and the… pic.twitter.com/ulPcxoOwM3
— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) September 16, 2025
This feels like "mostly peaceful" Round 2: "very touching" killer. They can just not!
And here's some more cable news clownery, from MSNBC:
MSNBC's Zadrozny: To suggest people on the internet are cheering for the murder of Charlie Kirk is "the total opposite of what's actually happening."
Their lying simply knows no bounds. None. pic.twitter.com/9iz8LLxH4B
— Western Lensman (@WesternLensman) September 16, 2025
College campus skirmishes: At campus after campus, skirmishes keep erupting over how to honor Kirk—and whether students who oppose Kirk will allow tributes to him to remain up and untouched. Consider this interaction, from the University of North Carolina Wilmington:
Before and after pic.twitter.com/Qk0WvyDSTy
— Nick Craig (@nicholasmcraig) September 16, 2025
And Texas State University appears to have expelled a student who mocked the way Kirk was killed—gleefully reenacting the bullet hitting his neck in front of a memorial that mourning students had set up—and spit on or at TPUSA students while disrupting their event:
This was at Texas State @txst a Charlie Kirk memorial event hosted by local TPUSA chapter. Student imitates Charlie Kirk's death and mocks him, goes up to statue where TPUSA members are and imitates his death again, and spits near them. Also uses a vape/weed pen near end of video… pic.twitter.com/mVOHeh1jpk
— TheTexasOne (@TexasRepublic71) September 16, 2025
I'm a little torn on the nastiness that's emerging in the wake of the Kirk assassination and how it ought to be dealt with. We should give wide berth to expressive acts and have campuses that tolerate speech, even ugly speech that offends many of us. But might vandalism and disrupting a memorial and spitting on fellow students be considered something beyond expression? I'm torn here, and truthfully pretty disgusted by the reactions to Kirk's killing from cable news pundits, college students, online TikTokers—not people I found especially reliable and even-keeled before all this, but…new lows are always possible, I suppose.
The Reason Roundup Newsletter by Liz Wolfe Liz and Reason help you make sense of the day's news every morning.
Scenes from New York: A little offended that the most Reason possible headline appeared in The New York Times: "Strip Club Executives Bribed Tax Auditor With Lap Dances."
QUICK HITS
- "New York State terrorism charges against Luigi Mangione, the defendant in the fatal shooting of UnitedHealthcare's chief executive last year, were dismissed on Tuesday, including a first-degree murder count that could have landed him in prison for the rest of his life," reports The New York Times. "The judge overseeing the case, Gregory Carro, said he had found the evidence behind the charges 'legally insufficient.' Mr. Mangione, 27, also faces federal charges, and is still charged in New York with second-degree murder, for which he faces a sentence of 25 years to life, among nine other counts. Those cases will proceed, though no trial dates have been set.…New York law requires that prosecutors who charge a defendant with terrorism show that the person attempted to intimidate a civilian population, or influence government policy or conduct. Justice [Gregory] Carro said that prosecutors had failed to show that Mr. Mangione sought to do either." People celebrated in the streets.
- Today, the Federal Reserve is expected to cut interest rates, given the weakening labor market.
- The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), under Robert F. Kennedy Jr., look likely to change the vaccination recommendations for Hepatitis B shots for newborns, making it so that they're no longer the norm. Hep B is an awful viral disease that damages the liver, but it's mostly acquired through sex or needles, and mothers are tested for Hepatitis B during pregnancy, so it has always seemed like overkill to me that newborns must be vaccinated against this when we know their status and their mother's status from the get-go. Ofer Levy of Boston Children's Hospital said the quiet part out loud to The New York Times: "The risk of families falling between the cracks of the health care system may be much higher in the U.S." That's why those shots have long been recommended by the CDC. But this is indicative of so much that's frustrating about public health: There's the expectation that parents be comfortable with assuming some additional risk for the greater good, to ensure no child anywhere slips through the cracks.
- The "Charlie Kirk is a misogynist" line strikes me as so weird and untrue. Is it just that any devout Christian is considered a terrible sexist pig? It's disturbing to me that some large portion of the country is totally unaware of what the other half believes, and so quick to look past their honorable and consistent actions:
The more I think about it, the more I take issue with the "Charlie Kirk was a misogynist" line from parts of the left. What are you talking about? He seemed like a pretty exemplary husband and father. Or is it that any devout Christian is considered a misogynist by these people?
— Liz Wolfe (@LizWolfeReason) September 16, 2025
