Utah Gov. Spencer Cox on Sunday provided updates on the investigation into Charlie Kirk’s assassination, telling NBC News’ “Meet the Press” that the suspect was in a romantic relationship with his roommate, who is cooperating with authorities.
“What we have learned specifically is that this person did not have any knowledge, was shocked when they found out about it,” Cox said of the roommate.
That person “is a boyfriend who is transitioning from male to female,” Cox said, misgendering the roommate. Cox confirmed earlier reporting from Fox News.
The roommate has been “very cooperative,” Cox said.
This tracks with what a federal official close to the investigation told NBC News on Sunday.
Investigators have been interviewing Robinson’s roommate, with the official saying “there appears to be a romantic relationship” and that the roommate is transitioning from male to female. The roommate has been cooperating, but there still is “not a solid understanding” of how that personal relationship are factors, the official said.
Asked on CNN how the roommate transitioning was relevant to the suspect’s motive, Cox said, “That’s what we’re trying to figure out right now.”
“It’s easy to draw conclusions from that, and so we’ve got the shell casings, other forensic evidence that is coming in and trying to piece all of those things together,” Cox said.
Cox also said Robinson has not been cooperating with authorities. The federal official told NBC News that Robinson has invoked his Fifth Amendment rights.
Authorities have not provided details about the suspect’s motive. The governor said that the suspect, 22-year-old Tyler Robinson, had a “leftist ideology” despite coming from a conservative family. Robinson was not registered to any political party. Authorities said he scrawled messages about fascism, video games and internet memes on ammunition.
Officials said Robinson had only recently shown interest in politics, and a relative recalled him criticizing Kirk during a dinner ahead of his Utah Valley University event. Kirk built a dedicated audience in part through a willingness to argue contentious stances online and in on-campus events, including calling a trans person “an abomination to God.”
In the aftermath of the shooting, Cox has taken on a lead role in urging calm amid soaring tensions. He urged Americans to find an “off-ramp” at a time of rising political violence and a polarized political landscape, while also speaking against social media, which he has called a “cancer.”
Cox, a Republican, echoed those messages on Sunday, arguing that “social media has played a direct role in every single assassination and assassination attempt that we have seen over the last five, six years.”
“There is no question in my mind that cancer probably isn’t a strong enough word,” he added.
The governor also said he could not “emphasize enough the damage that social media and the internet is doing to all of us.” Powerful companies “have figured out how to hack our brains, get us addicted to outrage,” he added.
Cox urged people to use their own agency to move the country away from the brink, rather than waiting for a political figure to show the path forward.
“People keep waiting for somebody to lead us out of this. And I think that’s a mistake,” Cox said. “I don’t think any one person, certainly not a governor, I don’t think a president, I don’t think anyone can change the trajectory of this. It truly is about every single one of us.”
Asked about President Donald Trump saying last week that “the radicals on the left are the problem,” Cox said that Trump “is angry, and he has every right to be angry.”
Cox said that the White House asked him to appear on morning shows “because they’re worried about the escalation that’s happening out there.”
“But again, I don’t know why we feel like we need to take our cues, that we as Americans have to get up in the morning and decide how we’re going to react or act based on what the president says, or what a governor says, or what anyone else says,” Cox said.
He said that his conservative philosophy and his faith led him to believe that “we are each individually responsible for ourselves.”
“The United States of America is a collection of a lot of different people,” he said. “And again, no president is going to lead us out of this. It’s going to be every single one of us.”