Luigi Mangione's Friend Recalls Reading Unabomber Manifesto Together

TMZ

Luigi Mangione, who is suspected of killing UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, may have been a big fan of Unabomber Ted Kaczynski's manifesto ... but didn't let on to his friends about this.

Transcript

00:00There was something that we found online where Luigi had made a comment, or left a review

00:08of the Unabomber's Ted Kaczynski's manifesto and he spoke pretty glowingly in this review

00:16of the ideology behind Ted Kaczynski in that he called him, I believe he said that he was

00:23a brilliant thinker about, he adored or admired the way Ted Kaczynski thought about corporate

00:33America and that corporate America was evil basically.

00:39Was that ever one of the conversations that you guys had?

00:43As part of our surf book club, we each kind of got to pick a different book week to week

00:48and another member and I, half jokingly, half serious, actually picked the Unabomber

00:55manifesto and I picked it because I never read it before and I figured, well, if I pick

00:59it, it'll force me to read it and found it very kind of difficult and painful.

01:07I don't think many of us read past the first chapter.

01:11We definitely had a lively conversation about the book, but the things in the book and the

01:19things that Kaczynski writes in the manifesto about corporate American things aren't new.

01:24They've been circulated since the counter revolution of the 1960s.

01:28You can read Call Me Ishmael and you understand that our society is kind of on a dystopian

01:34trajectory in terms of how we treat the environment.

01:37I think reading the manifesto, none of us thought that any of the ideas in it were remotely

01:43revolutionary and that had been circulated in consciousness for many, many decades.

01:50But it certainly seemed to have an impact on Luigi, at least based on that review that

01:55he wrote.

01:56Was he that passionate in your conversation about the manifesto?

02:02I didn't detect any special passion regarding the manifesto.

02:08We read all sorts of different books.

02:10In our group text chat, we had a lot of great conversations and there were all sorts of

02:16things that we found fascinating, but nothing stood out about reading that book versus some

02:23of the others.

02:24I think largely one of our big subject matters was trying to understand how good people from

02:29two sides or two parts of the spectrum can so vehemently disagree about things and not

02:34come to logical solutions and working together.

02:39In some ways, the subtext is how the nation is so divided right now and why don't we solve

02:44and why don't we address problems that are so blatantly obvious to everyone.

02:49It sounds like you don't believe that he could be the person who did this.

02:55The Luigi I know could have never murdered someone.

03:00It's just inconceivable.

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