ABC News’ national correspondent Matt Gutman has issued an apology after drawing backlash for describing the assassin of Charlie Kirk, Tyler Robinson, in unusually sympathetic terms, highlighting his “touching” and “intimate” messages to a trans lover in the immediate aftermath of the killing.
WTF?!
— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) September 16, 2025
ABC’s Matt Gutman says that the messages of the shooter confessing to the m*rder of Charlie Kirk were "VERY TOUCHING."
What about the confession of an alleged killer is "touching"???
Sickpic.twitter.com/cZb5uOHern
Gutman said that the messages were "very touching, in a way, that I think many of us didn't expect. A very intimate portrait into this relationship between the suspect's roommate and the suspect himself, with him repeatedly calling his roommate, who is transitioning, calling him 'my love,' and, 'I want to protect you, my love.'"
"The terminology he used, he was trying to protect him," Gutman continued later. "He kept calling him 'my love.' 'My reason for doing this is to protect you.'"
He has since apologized for those remarks.
"Yesterday I tried to underscore the jarring contrast between this cold blooded assassination of Charlie Kirk—a man who dedicated his life to public dialogue—and the personal, disturbing texts read aloud by the Utah County Attorney at the press conference," Gutman said Wednesday. "I deeply regret that my words did not make that clear."
UPDATE: ABC's Matt Gutman issued an apology saying he "deeply regrets" calling the text messages of Charlie Kirk's alleged shooter "VERY TOUCHING"
— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) September 17, 2025
Do you accept his apology? https://t.co/qNVMO7mQY0 pic.twitter.com/fA5sLsx2vc
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Not even a week has passed since the assassination of Charlie Kirk, and yet major media figures are already softening the edges of a political killing, casting the gunman’s words in a sympathetic light, purely because of the identity of the person he texted.
🚨@KatiePavlich calls OUT the media for attempting to paint Tyler Robinson as a victim.
— Townhall.com (@townhallcom) September 17, 2025
"A number of people in the media are trying to find some hook here to make it so that this guy — the guy who allegedly STOLE Charlie Kirk from his FAMILY, from his CHILDREN, from the COUNTRY… pic.twitter.com/uNvH9Cz4BP
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