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Gov. Cox: Transgender partner of alleged Charlie Kirk killer cooperating with authorities

Tyler RobinsonTyler Robinson, 22, (pictured on Sept. 12, 2025) the alleged killer of Charlie Kirk, conservative Christian political activist. / Credit: Handout/Getty Images

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Sep 15, 2025 / 18:01 pm (CNA).

Utah Gov. Spencer Cox confirmed that the man accused of killing Christian conservative activist Charlie Kirk lived with a transgender partner who is cooperating with authorities in the ongoing investigation.

The suspected assassin is 22-year-old Tyler Robinson, a resident of St. George, Utah, which is about a three-and-a-half-hour drive south of Utah Valley University, where the shooting occurred. Formal charges are expected Tuesday, Sept. 16.

Although Robinson has exercised his right to remain silent while in custody and has not spoken to authorities, his live-in transgender partner and members of his family are cooperating with the investigation. He was arrested Thursday night, Sept. 11, the day after the shooting.

In an interview with NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday, Sept. 14, Cox said the roommate of the alleged shooter “is a boyfriend who is transitioning from male to female.” He said the roommate “has been very cooperative with authorities.”

“This person did not have any knowledge [and] was shocked … when he found out about it,” the governor said. “The suspect has not been cooperating so far, and so we’re getting all of this information from family members, again, people around the suspect, and then the forensic information that we have, which is confirming everything and more than what we were able to share in that initial press conference.”

In a previous news conference, Cox said the roommate showed investigators messages that Robinson allegedly sent, which discussed engraving bullets, needing to retrieve a rifle from a drop point, leaving a rifle in a bush, and wrapping a rifle in a towel.

Kirk was shot while answering a question about transgenderism and gun violence. Kirk said he supported an effort to ban transgender people from owning firearms in light of the shooting at Annunciation Catholic Church in Minnesota last month, which was carried out by a man who identified as a transgender person.

Throughout his career as a conservative activist, Kirk had been a critic of gender ideology, opposing allowing biological males in women’s sports, transgender surgeries and drugs for children, and the promotion of transgenderism and homosexuality in K–12 schools.

FBI investigates suspect’s communications

Cox said Robinson came “from a conservative family, but his ideology was very different” from his family’s, and “there clearly was a leftist ideology with this [alleged] assassin.”

“The ‘why’ behind this, again, we’re all drawing lots of conclusions on how someone like this could be radicalized,” he said.

FBI Director Kash Patel told “Fox & Friends” on Monday, Sept. 15, the agency will not “politicize this investigation.” Rather, he said, “we are looking at the facts and that is why we are releasing the facts in record fashion.”

“My job as FBI director is not to speak to motive; it’s to speak to the facts, and that’s what I’m going to do,” he said.

“His family has collectively told investigators that he subscribed to left-wing ideology, and even more so in these last couple of years,” Patel continued. “And [the suspect] had a text message exchange … with another individual in which he claimed that he had an opportunity to take out Charlie Kirk, and he was going to do it because of his hatred for what Charlie stood for.”

Markings on bullet casings found by investigators included the phrase “Hey, fascist. Catch!” and lyrics to the Italian anti-fascist song “Bella Ciao.”

Patel said the FBI has evidence of a since-destroyed note written before the assassination in which the suspect wrote that he had the opportunity to “take out” Kirk and planned to do so. He said “even though it has been destroyed, we have found forensic evidence of the note, and we have confirmed what … it says because of our aggressive interview posture.” He said the FBI also has DNA evidence to link the suspect to the shooting.

According to Patel, the FBI is also investigating the suspect’s conversations in chatrooms on the online messaging application Discord, and investigators will interview people with whom he conversed there.

FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino told Fox News’ “America’s Newsroom” on Monday that the agency has evidence that the suspect may have communicated that “his target was obviously going to be Charlie [Kirk] and that people knew in advance.”

Bongino said he does not “want anyone to jump to conclusions on this,” noting this is a question of whether people knew in advance and kept it quiet or whether they thought “it was some type of joke.”

“That’s what we’re trying to find out now,” he said. “But I promise you, if there’s a larger network here, we’re going to get that out to the public as soon as we can.”

The New York Times reported that in one Discord chat, friends of Robinson noted that he looked similar to the shooter. Robinson allegedly said the shooter was a “doppelganger” who was trying to “get me in trouble.”

According to the Times, much of the communications appeared to be joking. After Robinson’s arrest, the report noted that members were in disbelief with one saying: “I truly cannot distinguish if this is for real.”

The Washington Post reported on a separate Discord chat in which Robinson was allegedly involved, which showed members expressing concern about the shooting with one saying Kirk “didn’t deserve to go out like that.”

Robinson allegedly told this chat: “I have bad news for you all,” adding: “It was me at UVU yesterday. [I’m] sorry for all of this.”

One friend reportedly urged the group to “pray for Tyler [Robinson] and his repentance” after the arrest.

Bongino said the FBI is looking into the man who asked the question about transgenderism and gun violence just before Kirk was shot at the event, but noted Kirk “was known to speak out about these issues” and that it is “not terribly uncommon for him to get questions like that.”

The man who asked the question gave an interview to “Channel 5 with Andrew Callaghan” late last week and denounced the assassination and political violence.

Bongino said the assassination was “an ideologically motivated attack” on a conservative.

“Family members said he’d become more political, leading us to believe that this ideology had infected him and had taken over,” Bongino said.


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24 Comments

  1. Satan’s agents are hard at work to upend and destroy Christ’s followers. Make no mistake about the reality of Satan nor his power. Satan tried to destroy Christ but, failing that, he’ll settle for destroying anyone who aspires to follow Him

    • While hosting the Charlie Kirk program after Charlie Kirk’s assassination, Vice President Vance cited polls showing that 24% OF SELF DESCRIBED VERY LIBERAL BELIEVE IT IS ACCEPTABLE TO BE HAPPY ABOUT THE DEATH OF A POLITICAL OPPONENT, WHILE ONLY 3% OF SELF DESCRIBED VERY CONSERVATIVES AGREE, 26% OF YOUNG POLITICAL LIBERALS AGREE THAT POLITICAL VIOLENCE IS SOMETIMES JUSTIFIED, ONLY 7% OF YOUNG CONSERVATIVES SAY SAME.
      https://x.com/i/broadcasts/1OwGWegpplDxQ

  2. The politicians who mist recently sowed the seeds of the political assassination militia movement are Barry Sotero (aka Barack Obama) and Joseph Biden.

    Obama with his agitprop: “I want you to get in their face;” and “We are going to reward our friends and punish our enemies.” And Obama with his psycho-sexual-disintegration -political-creed: “Love is love.”

    Biden with his agitprop: “Trump is a threat to our democracy.” And Biden with his psycho-sexual-disintegration-feast-day called “The Trans Day of Visibility,” pronounced on Easter Sunday (if I recall correctly it was Easter 2024).

    Their agitprop for violence and psycho-sexual-disintegration was the permission to act received by the Christian School girl-trans-to-be-boy child murderer, the recent Annunciation School trans-to-be-girl child murderer, and the political assassin Tyler Robinson, disoriented sex partner of his trans-to-be-girl male sex partner.

    These 2 men, and their like-minded political media messengers like Matthew Dowd of MSNBC, etc, etc, etc are the establishment elites who cultivated the assassination culture on the left, a culture in which polls now report has the approval of about 50% of the people self-identified as “liberal.”

    As the candid left-wing comedian and social commentator Bill Maher just noted in his show: “Right-wingers still want to talk with people about things. It’s the left-wingers who don’t want speech.”

    He was referring to his appreciation for Charlie Kirk, who he invited as a guest on his show, and whom he said he liked. (Just as he said he liked Trump when he spoke with him at dinner.)

    Or as Charlie Kirk repeatedly declared:
    “When married couples stop talking together the next step is divorce, when we as citizens stop talking together, the next step is violence and civil war.”

  3. Utah Gov. Spencer Cox’s immediate pivot to the identity of the alleged shooter’s transgender partner is a cynical distraction, designed to appease a MAGA base eager to shift blame anywhere but inward. The truth is far more uncomfortable: a radicalized young man, raised in a conservative home, killed a hardline right-wing activist at a right-wing college in a deep red state—not because he was leftist, but because, perhaps, Kirk wasn’t extreme enough. Robinson’s transgender roommate is cooperating; she’s not the story. The story is that Charlie Kirk built a platform of hatred, indoctrination, and division—rhetoric that poisons young minds, including, ironically, his killer’s. To ignore the damage Kirk did is to whitewash a toxic legacy. No, violence is never justified—but making Kirk a martyr or saint because he cloaked extremism in Christian language is morally bankrupt. If Republicans truly seek justice, they must first look within, not scapegoat the most vulnerable.

    • Thank you, Deacon CNN, for your take. For another perspective, rooted in actual documents, texts, conversations, see the recent NRO piece, Accused Charlie Kirk Shooter Texted Trans Lover: ‘I Had Enough of His Hatred’”. Which includes:

      Gray went on to explain that Robinson’s family members reported that he had grown more political since entering into a relationship with Twiggs.

      Robinson’s mom told law enforcement that he had become more political and had started to lean more to the left, “becoming more pro-gay and trans-rights oriented,” according to Gray.

      Robinson’s political shift and his romantic relationship with his transgender roommate “resulted in several discussions with family members, but especially between Robinson and his father, who have very different political views,” according to court documents filed Tuesday.

      “Since trump got into office [my dad] has been pretty diehard maga,” Robinson said in one text message to his roommate.

      In the text messages to Twiggs, Robinson revealed he had been planning the shooting for “a bit over a week.”

      “Remember how I was engraving bullets?” he messaged. “The f***in messages are mostly a big meme, if I see ‘notices bulge uwu’ on fox new [sic] I might have a stroke.”

      You write: “The story is that Charlie Kirk built a platform of hatred, indoctrination, and division.” Hmmm. As opposed to the love, unity, and transparency shown by the Left over the past 25 to 250 years?

      You are a cliche covered in stereotype sauce and heavily flavored with complete bunk.

      • It should be noted that there are lots of pushback from readers skeptical about the texts supposedly from Tyler Robinson and his lover. I’m certainly open to the possibility they are fake, but I have no way to judge that. The problem is that the state is now in the hands of a regime entirely built on lies and the undermining of law and law enforcement in service of its ends. So the manipulation of evidence (like, oh, the Epstein files) is par for the course and it will be extremely difficult to know what is real and what is fake. Without a public statement from the shooter himself for the cameras on live TV it will be hard to know what is really happening. Hopefully, the trial will clarify things.

        • “… but I have no way to judge that.”

          But you already did.

          “The problem is that the state is now in the hands of a regime entirely built on lies and the undermining of law and law enforcement in service of its ends.”

          I didn’t know Utah law enforcement and courts were so corrupt. Good to know. (Ahem.)

    • Deacon Dom, your line of thinking is, as usual, perverse. You don’t miss an opportunity to score political points. It was warped, hostile, perverse, brainwashed thinking that murdered Charlie Kirk. It’s time for reflection and prayer – not more political vitriol.

    • Love that is not properly grounded would not be Love, for Love is always rightly ordered to the inherent personal and relational Dignity of the persons existing in a relationship of Love, and Virtue requires The Truth Of Love. Faith that is ordered to Jesus The Christ, being rightly ordered, could not be excessive or fanatical, and Hope that is ordered to The Cross Of Christ, and thus our Redemption and Salvation, being rightly ordered, could never be excessive or in vain. – Google Search

      Prayers for Charlie Kirk, his family, his friends, and our Country. Prayers for the families that are suffering with the heartbreak that comes with a body dysphoria that denies the essence of being a beloved son or daughter, and are being denied the proper care to affirm their children as beloved sons and daughters.🙏✝️💕🌹

    • All evidence suggests that Mr. Robinson lived with a sexual partner he called a girl (like you did) but is really a boy. We are learning that Mr. Robinson was motivated to murder Mr. Kirk to stop Mr. Kirk from saying that men, like the boyfriend of Mr. Robinson, are not girls. “Facts are stubborn things.” (John Adams)

      If sodomy and trans ideology are not objectively wrong, why was the murder of Mr. Kirk wrong? Deacon Dom says that murder is wrong but other objective sins are not sins. Why should Mr. Robinson have listened to you? Are you the word of truth and life? No, when Mr. Robinson is taught to reject some teachings of God by false teachers, we cannot be surprised when Mr. Robinson rejects all the teachings of God. “If you love me, keep (all of) my commandments.” (John 14:15)

    • It’s a good thing DD is not in school; otherwise, he might get busted for plagiarism, since his posts/screeds are nothing more substantive than the typical DNC/NPR/MSNBC talking points, almost to a letter. It’s also quite a revealing example of projection. Once leftist ideology hijacks people’s thinking, they go about accusing other people of being the very thing that they are themselves. Their lack of basic self-awareness prevents them from seeing this, however. The irony of DD accusing people of platforming hate is ironic, although the irony is lost on people like him.

    • Cardinal Müeller’s reflection on Charlie Kirk.

      Diane Montagna: Your Eminence, you know the United States well. Would you like comment on the assassination of Charlie Kirk?

      Cardinal Müller: Charlie Kirk was the victim of an atheistic ideology, whose followers erupted in satanic celebration over the heinous murder of an exemplary husband and family man. The devil always takes possession of those who hate life and truth. For, according to the words of the Lord Jesus Christ, the devil is a “murderer from the beginning” and the “father of lies” (John 8:44). And only those who hear the words of God are of God (cf. John 8:47).

      Charlie Kirk was a devout Christian. From a supernatural perspective, he died not as the victim of a political assassination, but as a martyr for Jesus Christ—not in the sense of those who are canonized, but as one who bore witness (from the Greek martyros) through his life. He gave his life in following his Lord, as a sacrifice for the truth that man is made in God’s image, male and female, and in opposition to the lies and self-mutilation promoted by so-called “trans-ideology” and “gender-affirming care.” He upheld and lived in defense of the beauty and sanctity of marriage and family, as ordained by God the Creator, and stood up for the dignity of every human life from conception to natural death.

      Diane Montagna: As I’m sure you’re aware, Charlie Kirk’s wife was Catholic, and his close friends have revealed that he attended Mass and was praying the Rosary.

      Cardinal Müller: Yes, and he recently praised Holy Mary as a model and “solution” to the ills of our day. By her “yes” to the Incarnation of God, she became the Mother of Jesus, the only Redeemer of humanity, who alone delivers us from lies, sin and death, and all murderous ideologies.

      We ask the Lord Jesus and Holy Mary to bring comfort to Charlie’s wife and children.

      From Diane Montagna’s substack.

      • Thank you Mr. Gibbons for reprinting this. I disagreed with the President that Mr. Kirk should be called a martyr, thinking of a martyr as one canonized. Cardinal Müller, as a master of Catholic theology, has made the proper distinctions to clarify this. Works for me.

        God’s peace to all, especially Mr. Kirk and his family.

  4. Dom:

    You should alert James Comey that you cracked the case. He’ll run it to ground for you.

    And remember your team motto: “Science is real, and Bruce Jenner is a girl.”

  5. The “transgender partner” is a smoke screen fabricated out of thin air to push a lie. A dangerous lie that is meant to tear this country to shreds. It’s more than a little depressing ro see how all too readily some are champing at the bit to prove this narrative instead of asking questions that matter.

    In doing some forensic digging, it has been uncovered that there is no such real person named Lance Twiggs. There is, however, a videogame character who is a commander in a game called Battlefield who is named Commander Lance Twiggs.

    This really isn’t that hard to figure out. The video game references everywhere. The memes on the bullets. This was entirely the work of a Groyper radicalized individual. Anyone who says otherwise is either being dishonest on purpose to sell a narrative or they possess an uncurious mind and are resistant to truth.

    • No, this is not a lie. But once you’ve stumbled down the rabbit-hole of believing that evidence collected during the investigation has been “fabricated,” then I suppose you’re free to come up with whatever alternative explanation you prefer.

      • You are very obviously the one dabbling in alternative explanations Mary quite Contrary. How very strange you have spent the past decade schreeching about the MSM lies but now you swallow them with more gusto than a truck stop lady of the night.

        • “How very strange you have spent the past decade schreeching about the MSM.” No clue, dude …

          No, I am looking at the evidence that has been released to the public. I have no theories of my own. I wouldn’t even try to construct an actual theory unless I had direct access to the evidence.

          Hiowever, I HAVE been coming across scores of interesting and often imaginative theories about the Kirk assassination,Tyler Robinson, etc., although they start to sound similar after a while, as though a given set elements are being recombined with a few new touches here and there. Your theory falls right into that pattern.

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