Piers Morgan lost his cool during a heated debate on his “Uncensored” show, swearing at guest Taylor Lorenz.
Lorenz, a former Washington Post and Daily Beast reporter, was on the show Monday to defend controversial social media posts that appeared to celebrate the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson. Lorenz, now a podcaster for Vox Media, admitted on the panel that her reaction to the killing was “joy,” according to NBC.
She said she “felt, along with so many other Americans, joy, unfortunately” after the shooting last Wednesday in front of a New York City hotel.
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“Why would you be in such a celebratory mood about the execution of another human being?” Morgan asked the journalist, kicking off a heated debate.
She backtracked on her statement when pressed, and said: “Maybe not joy, but certainly not empathy.”
The shooting outside a New York City hotel / NYPD News / via REUTERS
Lorenz at one points demands of Morgan: “Don’t say I’m joyful.”
“You said you were feeling joyful,” Morgan replies.
“Yeah, I take that back. Joyful is the wrong word here,” she admits. “I indicated it’s celebratory because it feels like justice in this system.”
Lorenz was making a case for Americans who had been denied life-saving health care by insurance firms, like UnitedHealthcare, she said. The company has indeed been hit with claims of high rates of denial, and using AI software to reject some, according to Fox. The 26-year-old Ivy League graduate arrested in the killing, Luigi Mangione, reportedly cited his own frustrations with the healthcare industry in a manifesto that he was carrying.
Brian Thompson was gunned down / United Health Group
The situation spilled over when Republican commentator Tomi Lahren criticized Lorenz for “celebrating” Thompson’s murder and called out liberals for their belief in “political violence.”
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At this point Morgan snapped at Lorenz, who did appear to be smirking throughout the interview. “Taylor, I don’t mean to be rude, but why the f— are you laughing all the time?” Morgan jumped in. “I don’t get it. Sorry, apologies for my language, but honestly, I find it unbelievable. What are you laughing at?”
Defending herself, she responded: “I am laughing at Tomi’s insane mischaracterization of why people are angry. We do not think that this health care system is murdering, again, thousands of innocent Americans who, by the way, Tomi, also have families, also have children. These people are being killed by our barbaric and evil for-profit health care system.”
She added that the issue of claim denial is “systemic” and said it will only be solved when” Brian or whoever is in charge of these companies stops murdering tens of thousands of innocent Americans.”
On X Tuesday, Lorenz said accounts that she said she “felt joy” were incorrect. She wrote: “I absolutely never said I felt joy about the murder, I said very clearly that I was feeling joy that the rich elite pundits like Piers and other multi millionaire media/political leaders are being forced to confront the barbaric nature of our healthcare system.”
She added: “The CEO was a murderer and I do not feel sadness over his death. But the media would rather misrepresent my very clear words and foment outrage than engage with the fact that many of us ARE OVERJOYED that these millionaire pundits are forced to acknowledge Americans suffering.”
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