Gov. Spencer Cox confirmed Sunday that the 22-year-old suspect in the shooting of Charlie Kirk was living with a boyfriend who was transitioning from male to female and Robinson became “radicalized” in a short matter of time.
Cox made the statement to Kristen Welker on NBC’s Meet the Press as he was interviewed on several Sunday morning talk shows. He said more information will be released on Tuesday in the ongoing investigation.
Tyler James Robinson, who lives in St. George, was apprehended at 10 p.m. Thursday night at his parent’s home in Washington City, Utah, after a statewide manhunt and cooperation from friends and family who alerted authorities.
Robinson’s father recognized his son in photos the FBI released from UVU security footage, and he asked his son to turn himself in.
Cox said Robinson’s boyfriend, who was not identified, is cooperating with authorities. Cox said the suspect, in custody in Utah County, is not cooperating.
“We can confirm that again according to family and people that we’re interviewing, (Robinson) does come from a conservative family. But his ideology was very different than his family,” Cox told Welker. “And so that’s part of it. We do know that the roommate that we had originally talked about, we can confirm that that roommate is a boyfriend who is transitioning from male to female.”
Cox said Robinson’s roommate, who he did not name, has also been “very cooperative with authorities” and that there is additional forensic information law enforcement authorities are processing. Cox said all of this information will be shared when charges are filed on Tuesday.
Welker asked Cox how the suspect was radicalized.
“Clearly there was a lot of gaming going on,” Cox said. “Friends have confirmed that there was kind of that deep, dark internet, the Reddit culture, and these other dark places of the internet where this person was going deep.”
Cox: Social media played ‘direct role in every single assassination’ in past few years
At a Friday morning press conference, Cox called Kirk’s assassination an “attack on the American experiment,” and he called on Americans to turn down the temperature and called social media a “cancer.”
On Sunday, Cox more than doubled down on those remarks.
“I believe 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,” he said. There is no question in my mind. Cancer probably isn’t a strong enough word."
Cox said Utah is trying to address the harm done to kids, “it took us a decade to realize how evil these algorithms are,” he said. But, he said ,social media companies are suing the state to stop the reforms.
Cox: Trump ‘has every right to be angry’
Welker asked Cox to respond to remarks made by President Donald Trump in regards to Kirk’s assassination, where he said, “The radicals on the left are the problem, and they’re vicious and they’re horrible and they’re politically savvy.”
Cox said he has spoken to Trump and “he has every right to be angry.”
“A lot of Americans are very angry right now, and there clearly was a leftist ideology with this — with this assassin. And so I totally understand that anger," he said. “I also wish you would have played the clip where he quoted Charlie Kirk about the importance of nonviolence because he said that, too.”
After his remarks Friday, Cox said President Donald Trump called him and thanked him “multiple times for my words.”
He said the White House asked him to go on Sunday morning talk shows, which he said he doesn’t do much anymore.
“The White House asked us to come on and to talk about this because they’re worried about the escalation that’s happening out there,” he said.
But ultimately, people have to take responsibility for themselves and their actions, he said.
“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,” he said. “In my conservative philosophy, and, quite frankly, in my faith philosophy, we believe in agency. We believe that we are each individually responsible for ourselves.”
Cox also appeared Sunday morning on ABC News’ “This Week,” and on CNN’s “State of the Union.”
Southern Utahns continue to mourn
Southern Utah continued to mourn Charlie Kirk and for the family of the suspect on Saturday morning in Vernon Worthen Park.
A small group of Utahns living in St. George and Washington City gathered in the park, where they bowed their heads together and sang, “Lord, listen to your children praying. Lord, send your spirit in this place,” as they mourned for the slain conservative activist.
The local event was planned in the aftermath of Kirk’s assassination at Utah Valley University in Orem on Wednesday.
Kirk, who founded the organization Turning Point USA, was shot during a “Prove Me Wrong” debate at Utah Valley University on Wednesday around noon. Just a few hours later, he was pronounced dead at Timpanogos Regional Hospital.
At a press conference on the college’s campus on Friday, Cox also confirmed that Robinson’s roommate had disclosed private messages where Robinson asked him to pick up a gun wrapped in a towel in a wooded area next to UVU campus.
When found, officials discovered inscriptions on the gun’s bullet casings and bullets that read, “Hey fascist! Catch!”, “Notices, bulges, OwO what’s this?”, and an up arrow symbol, a down arrow symbol and three arrows pointed down and to the left — a popularly used symbol within the Antifa movement. Also the messages, “If you read this, you are gay LMAO,” and “oh bella ciao, bella ciao, bella ciao, ciao, ciao,” a song used in the Italian resistance movement in WWII.
Washington County, where St. George and Washington City are located, is predominantly conservative — 75% of its residents voted for Donald Trump in 2024 — and Robinson’s parents are registered Republicans. However, Robinson was “engulfed” in “dangerous” and “radical left ideology,” Cox told the Deseret News.
Even as the city mourns Kirk, a man they consider a conservative hero, they’re grappling with how a local resident might have done something so heinous.
‘Send us grace,’ Washington cries in mourning
Christine Stolworthy, a Hurricane resident, told the Deseret News she was shocked when she heard Kirk had been killed, and she was even more shocked when she heard Robinson lived just a couple minutes away.
“You feel like you’re in one of the safest places, and you just never know,” she said. “It’s a tragedy, no matter where he was from. This whole thing is a tragedy. And then thinking of both families — But to find out that the shooter was from this area just is indescribable — in a bad way.”
Stolworthy said mourning for both Kirk and the suspected shooter’s family in Southern Utah has been “palpable” since word broke about Robinson on Friday. “You can feel it. You can feel the energy of the people around mourning,” she said.
And Stolworthy was right. In the little crowd stood grown men brought to tears as they sang, “Send us love, send us power, send us grace.”
Also in attendance was Nicole Rossetti, a mother of two young boys. She told the Deseret News the most “painful part for me right now is raising my boys in a scary world.”
Rossetti said she feels horrible for both Kirk and Robinson’s families. “It’s a tragedy for any community, and I think when it happens in yours, it just rocks you,” she said. “I just pray for his family. I pray for Erika and her kids. It breaks my heart.”
Erika Kirk is Charlie Kirk’s wife. She delivered a heartbroken speech to the nation on Friday.
Joe Doherty, a pastor of 17 years at the New Lutheran Church in St. George Utah, read verses from the Bible to the crowd. To the Deseret News afterwards, he said, “We just felt like there needed to be something to pull people together in a situation like this.”
“I’m with Gov. Cox,” Doherty said. “I thought, how can this happen in our beautiful state? I somehow thought we were different. And I do think we are different in ways. But it also goes to show that even we are not untouched by the brokenness of humanity.”
State Rep. Candice Pierucci says focus should be on Charlie Kirk
When asked about the motives behind the shooting, Rep. Candice Pierucci, R-Salt Lake City, said there is still “much more about the shooter’s beliefs” left to uncover.
“I think that Gov. Cox was very clear about sharing some of the inscriptions and information and clues that this horrible person, the shooter, had left behind about what his ideology was,” she said.
Cox told the Deseret News he understood why President Donald Trump blamed the “radical left” after the shooting, saying, “I think President Trump’s response is very understandable and very natural. It’s very normal. It’s how most people are feeling. And I think it’s a mistake to tell people they shouldn’t feel that way in this moment. I mean, there truly was, in this case, a radical left ideology that this person made a decision, who had been engulfed in that, and that’s very dangerous.”
Pierucci said she hopes people will be more careful with their language about Republicans.
“It just is clear that this individual is radicalized and filled with hate and assassinated Charlie Kirk and tried to silence his message,” Pierucci said. “But it’s had the reverse effect.”
“I think we should be focusing on, you know, his wife and children, who will be growing up without a loving father because of this individual who was filled with hate,” she continued.
Moving forward, Pierucci urged people to be careful throwing around the word “fascist” or “Nazi.”
“We live in the United States of America,” she said. “We have no idea of what true fascism and Nazism looks like.”
The most important thing to do right now, Pierucci said, is to “focus on what Charlie Kirk’s message was, which was that we need to have dialogue, and we need to be able to talk about things that we disagree about in a way that can be productive.”
Contributing: Suzanne Bates, Emma Pitts and Brigham Tomco