Charlie Kirk’s alleged assassin is not cooperating with authorities even as he languishes on special watch inside a Utah jail – as President Donald Trump said a lot of people are under ‘major investigation’ for Kirk’s death.
Tyler Robinson, 22, was arrested on Friday in connection with Kirk’s shooting death at Utah Valley University earlier in the week.
Authorities have said he confessed to his father, Matt Robinson, that he had been the one to fatally shoot the 31-year-old conservative influencer in the neck.
Matt, who runs a family-owned construction company, then contacted authorities and secured his son before he could be taken into custody.
But Utah Gov. Spencer Cox said on Sunday that the suspect is not cooperating with police as they try to identify a motive for the shocking attack.
‘He has not confessed to authorities,’ Cox told ABC News’ Martha Raddatz. ‘He is not cooperating, but all the people around him are cooperating.’
Even so, President Trump has said that ‘a lot of the people that you would traditionally say are on the left’ are ‘already under major investigation’ in connection with Kirk’s assassination.
He has previously blamed leftist rhetoric for helping to fuel the hatred that led to his friend’s death – and doubled down on those claims as he spoke with reporters at a New Jersey airfield Sunday night.
Tyler Robinson, 22, the suspect accused of killing conservative influencer Charlie Kirk, 31, is not cooperating with police
He had been turned in by his father, Matt Robinson, after he allegedly confessed to carrying out the assassination
Investigators are continuing to work to determine what may have motivated Robinson to kill Kirk at Utah Valley University on Wednesday
‘The problem is on the left – it’s not on the right as some people like to say,’ the president claimed. ‘The problem we have is on the left.
‘And when you look at the agitators, you look at the scum that speak so badly of our country, the American flag burnings all over the place, that’s the left, that’s not the right.’
Cox has said that Robinson appeared to have become radicalized after dropping out of Utah State University.
He noted in an interview with NBC’s Meet the Press that Robinson’s family was conservative, but said ‘his ideology was very different than his family.’
The governor has previously said Robinson ‘mentioned Charlie Kirk was coming to UVU and why he didn’t like him’ at a recent dinner with his family.
Cox seemed to blame Internet culture for the change in ideology.
‘Clearly there was a lot of gaming going on, friends that have confirmed that there was kind of that deep, dark Internet, Reddit culture and these other dark places on the Internet where this person was going deep,’ Cox said.
‘You saw that on the casings… the memeification that is happening in our society today,’ he added.
The bullets used in Kirk’s death had engravings of ‘transgender and antifascist ideology’ on them, officials said on Thursday.
They were later confirmed to be engraved with phrases including ‘Hey fascist! CATCH!’, lyrics from an anti-fascist Italian song, and a sexually explicit meme reference.
Utah Gov. Spencer Cox claimed that Robinson seemed to have become radicalized after he dropped out of college
He reportedly told his parents ahead of Kirk’s visit to the university last week (pictured) that he did not like him
President Donald Trump told reporters on Sunday that that ‘a lot of the people that you would traditionally say are on the left’ are ‘already under major investigation’ in connection with Kirk’s assassination
It has since been revealed that Robinson had been in a relationship with his transgender roommate Lance Twiggs, whom Cox said is cooperating with police.
Twiggs was said to have been ‘aghast’ by the revelation that Robinson had been identified as the shooter, according to a report from Axios.
It reported the roommate as telling agents: ‘That’s what happened? Oh my God. Here are all the messages.’
Those messages indicated that a sender listed as Tyler had mentioned wrapping a rifle in a towel and stashing it in some bushes near where the shooting happened.
Yet investigators are still trying to determine what may have motivated Robinson to carry out the murder.
‘We also have to figure out how it came to be that a kid with a 4.0 [grade point average], with a 34 on the ACT, with a full-ride scholarship at my alma mater, who didn’t even last a semester, drops out and ends up doing something like this,’ Cox said on ABC’s This Week.
He noted in a separate interview that authorities are looking into a note Robinson wrote.
Robinson had been in a relationship with his transgender roommate, Lance Twiggs
On Friday, Jud Hoffman, Vice President of Trust & Safety at the social and gaming platform Discord, said there were ‘communications between the suspect’s roommate and a friend after the shooting where the roommate was recounting the contents of a note the suspect had left elsewhere’.
Cox appeared to confirm this with CNN’s Dana Bash on Sunday, but made it clear the note is still being reviewed.
‘Those are things that are still being processed for accuracy and verification and will be included in charging documents,’ the governor said.
The 22-year-old is expected to be formally charged with Kirk’s murder on Tuesday, and Cox has previously said he would seek the death penalty in the case.
But in the meantime, Robinson is being held without bail inside the Utah County Jail.
He is being held inside a special housing unit after he allegedly said he would kill himself rather than turn himself into investigators, spokesperson Sgt. Raymond Ormond told CBS.
He noted that the suspect appeared to have a different political ideology than his conservative family (pictured)
Meanwhile, Kirk is to be remembered at a largescale memorial service inside the home of the Arizona Cardinals next weekend.
Turning Point USA, his organization, announced that his supporters will be able to pay their final respects on Sunday September 21 inside State Farm Stadium.
In a post to their social media pages, they invited his supporters to join in ‘celebrating the remarkable life and enduring legacy’ of the conservative activist.
The stadium, located in Glendale, has a fixed seating capacity of 63,400 which can be expanded to as much as 73,000 for larger events.
It remains unclear at this time what private family funeral services will follow the largescale event.
President Trump said earlier this week that he was going to attend the service after addressing the nation following the death of Kirk.
