Luigi Mangione Pleads Guilty — But Where Was the Remorse?

**SPEAKER_1** (0:00)
Running a business is hard enough, so why make it harder with a dozen different apps that don't talk to each other? Introducing Odoo, the only business software you'll ever need. It's an all-in-one fully integrated platform that makes your work easier, from CRM, accounting, inventory, e-commerce and more. And the best part, Odoo replaces multiple expensive platforms for a fraction of the cost. That's why over thousands of businesses have made the switch. So, why not you? Try Odoo for free at odoo.com. That's odoo.com.

**SPEAKER_2** (0:30)
Courage.

**SPEAKER_3** (0:31)
I learned it from my adoptive mom.

**SPEAKER_2** (0:33)
Hold my hand.

**SPEAKER_4** (0:34)
You hold my hand.

**SPEAKER_2** (0:36)
Learn about adopting a team from foster care at adoptuskids.org.

**SPEAKER_5** (0:40)
You can't imagine the reward.

**SPEAKER_2** (0:41)
Brought to you by AdoptUSKids, the US. Department of Health and Human Services and the Ad Council.

**SPEAKER_6** (0:46)
Welcome to The Smerconish Podcast for Independent Minds.

**Michael Smerconish** (0:50)
I want to begin the week by talking about the Saturday poll question and what transpired Friday and over the weekend pertaining to Luigi Mangione. Because we had 57,056 vote on the Saturday poll question. I delivered a commentary on CNN to begin the program. I spent a lot of time working on it. It was like a 10-minute delivery, which is long for me in the course of that program. I had things that I wanted to say because I wasn't happy with what transpired on Friday. His allocution in federal court and then that which his lawyers said on the front steps of the courthouse. I didn't find remorse in it. I found a pitch in it. And the pitch was essentially, hey, I'm like all of you in that I have sat on hold and struggled for reimbursement with health insurance companies. And to me, it was just a continuation of everything that this case has represented thus far. And I told the story again on television with more detail than I had done previously about the fact that I have one thing in common with Brian Thompson. I had one thing in common with Brian Thompson, the health care executive who, and I don't have to say allegedly anymore, who was murdered by Luigi Mangione. And what we had in common was that we both stayed at the same hotel. And for me, for a decade, it was my practice, because I was spending a lot of time in New York City and shuttling between SiriusXM and SiriusXM, and pardon me, and CNN. And the hotel where I would say was on 54th Street, because it's a nice hotel, don't get me wrong, but also because it was well located. And I could walk to CNN, and I could walk to SiriusXM, and it was like equal distant between them. For 10 years, same hotel. So when this murder took place, and I saw that it was 54th Street between 6th and 7th, I knew the block, I know that block intimately. And you may remember if you were dialed in when this happened nearly two years ago, you may remember me talking on air here at POTUS and saying, I'm surprised so many media outlets are getting it incorrect. The New York Post among them, the New York Post was representing this as the murder had happened on the Avenue of the Americas because the Hilton fronts on the Avenue of the Americas, 6th Avenue, if you will. But I knew the block and I had seen the footage and I knew that no, he was coming in from 54th Street. In other words, the conference where Brian Thompson was going, that was at the Hilton, but that's not where he stayed. He stayed across the street where I stay. So he got up in the morning in the 6 o'clock hour and he walked across the street. It's about, I don't know, I'm estimating maybe 75 yards to go from one to the other. And then you go into a side entrance at the Hilton. And I found myself walking in those footsteps, not out of morbid curiosity, but because I was going to SiriusXM. One week to the day, same block, same hour of the day.
And what I noted and told you this at the time was that gone were any remnants of the murder which had transpired except for one street barricade, one police street barricade, which had yet to be picked up and there was a piece of yellow crime tape still sort of flickering having been tied to it. But what I most noted, there was like a guy standing there smoking. I remember this like it was yesterday and what I most noted is that there were no flowers, there were no candles, there was nothing posted in remembrance of Brian Thompson, but what there was on a adjacent poll, utility poll, I was going to say telephone poll, I don't know what kind of a poll it was, but there was something there that depicted Luigi Mangione as a saint.