WASHINGTON: The man arrested over conservative influencer Charlie Kirk’s assassination was romantically involved with a transgender roommate and had “leftist ideology,” Utah’s governor said Sunday, confirming details likely to inflame the contentious national debate over the killing.
“Yes I can confirm that,” Governor Spencer Cox told CNN’s “State of the Union” talk show when asked about suspect Tyler Robinson’s reported relationship with a trans partner.
“The roommate was a romantic partner, a male transitioning to a female,” Cox said.
“This partner has been incredibly cooperative, had no idea that this was happening, and is working with investigators right now,” he added.
Cox, who said 22-year-old Robinson is expected to be formally charged Tuesday, went on to stress it was not yet clear whether the partner’s transitioning was part of the alleged shooter’s mindset to kill Kirk, a close ally of US President Donald Trump.
“Again, all of these things — we’re trying to figure out,” he said.
Cox, who earned plaudits this past week for urging Americans to lower the toxic political temperature, made the rounds of US networks Sunday and told NBC talk show “Meet the Press” that investigators believed Robinson had embraced leftist beliefs.
“There clearly was a leftist ideology with this — with this assassin,” Cox said.
He said such information about Robinson, who has not been cooperating, was told to investigators by “people around him, from his family members and friends.”
Several US media outlets on Saturday reported Robinson’s relationship with a transgender individual, sparking fury by far-right activists for whom gender identity issues have been a key focus in recent years.
Laura Loomer, a conservative influencer who has Trump’s ear, called Saturday “to designate the Trans movement as a terrorist movement,” while X-owner Elon Musk elevated multiple posts calling for gender treatment bans and denouncing leftist ideology.
On Saturday he went further, telling a London march organized by far-right activists that “the left is the party of murder.”
Cox meanwhile reiterated a call for civility across the political spectrum, while attacking social media giants by comparing their addictive algorithms to the deadly drug fentanyl.
Kirk was shot Wednesday during a speaking event on a Utah university campus. He was the founder of the conservative youth political group Turning Point USA and was a strong critic of the transgender rights movement.
He wrote on X about what he called a “trans delusion death cult” in August, shortly after two children were killed and nine others wounded at a school church shooting in Minneapolis by an assailant authorities say was a 23-year-old man who claimed to be transgender.
Kirk’s provocations have stirred debate. He often invoked his Christian faith and criticized what he and others have called gender ideology.
In a video posted in 2023 by Right Wing Watch, Kirk is seen describing individuals being transgender to a church audience as “a throbbing middle finger to God.”
With debate raging over what inspired Kirk’s murder, a member of former president Joe Biden’s cabinet, Pete Buttigieg, stressed there was “not a consistent pattern of left versus right among the shooters” in recent high-profile attacks, noting that Minnesota Democratic lawmaker Melissa Hortman and her husband were killed in June.
“We have to reject anyone who would try to exploit political violence,” Buttigieg told NBC.
“The response to this cannot be for the government to crack down on individuals or groups because they challenge the government politically.”
Turning Point USA announced that a memorial service for Kirk will take place in a football stadium near Phoenix, Arizona on September 21, which Trump is expected to attend.
