Montel Williams claims Charlie Kirk's killer was 'emotionally motivated,' a 'love-torn child,' not driven by hate

Leftist and Democrat pundits rushed to distance their political ideology from the assassin of Charlie Kirk, who was brought up on charges on Tuesday. Among those were Montel Williams, who claimed that accused 22-year-old killer Tyler Robinson did not commit political violence, but was driven emotionally.

"We're talking about a love-torn child," Williams said on CNN, "a kid, this is probably his first real relationship, and somebody was disparaging the person that he loved. He sat on that building," he went on, discussing Robinson's tracked movements from the top of a nearby building from which he fired the fatal shot, "for 30 minutes before he took the shot."

"Why do you wait until the first word trans came up? Then he took the shot.

"You think he heard it?" He was asked.

"I think he could hear it," Williams said, leaning into the idea that somehow Charlie Kirk's honest discourse was a direct insult to Twiggs. "I think he also, I don't believe he was motivated politically. I think this was motivated emotionally." 

There has been an active effort on the left to not recognize the shooter as someone engaging in political violence on behalf of their deeply held leftist ideology. 

"Guys, guys," commentator Scott Jennings said, weighing in with sense and reason. "The evidence here is overwhelming. He said 'Charlie Kirk, I can't stand his hate anymore. I'm going to take him out.'

In his text messages following the shooting, Robinson told Twiggs: "I had enough of his hatred. Some hate can’t be negotiated out. If I am able to grab my rifle unseen, I will have left no evidence. Going to attempt to retrieve it again, hopefully they have moved on. I haven’t seen anything about them finding it." He revealed he'd been planning the killing "a bit over a week."

"The testimony from it and the statements of his family: he had become more left-wing. He etched the statements that are made by the left about Republicans and conservatives and Charlie Kirk, 'fascist,' on the bullet cases," Jennings said.

Williams said that Robinson made a "joke" about it, saying "He made a joke about it in his last text."

"It doesn't sound like a joke to me because someone's dead and about to be buried," Jennings said.

In the text exchange, Robinson had said to Twiggs "remember how I was engraving bullets? The fuckin messages are mostly a big meme, if I see “notices bulge uwu” on Fox News I might have a stroke alright im gonna have to leave it, that really fucking sucks. …"

"It doesn't sound like a joke to me, so I'm just telling you, there is an effort. There was an effort all weekend long on the left to try to make this guy sound like he was a conservative. That failed," Jennings said, "that was passed around all over the weekend, that has now failed. The evidence has now come out.

"He was motivated by hate. He was motivated by left-wing radicalism. He got mixed up with some trans ideology in his life. We'll learn more about that, I'm sure when more evidence and testimony comes out.

"We are looking around the edges of this for something other than what's staring us in the face. Left-wing radicalism got this kid. He went up to a roof and he murdered our friend, and that's what happens," Jennings said unequivocally.

Robinson's parents essentially turned him in and in comments his mother said that her son had been deep into leftist and trans ideology. He had been in a romantic relationship with Twiggs, who was transitioning from male to female. The two lived together.

Williams' comments appeared to echo comments made by ABC News reporter Matt Gutman, who said that the text messages between alleged killer Robinson and his trans lover Lance Twiggs were "very touching." Gutman later walked that back.