Luigi Mangione was ‘anti-woke’, says buddy as he reveals remorse over final messages with Brian Thompson ‘murderer’

A friend of Luigi Mangione has given a deeper insight into the alleged assassin‘s political views – and what might have radicalized him. 

Gurwinder Bhogal, a UK-based writer, told DailyMail.com Mangione was ‘anti-woke’, and that he expressed a deep envy for the UK’s nationalized health system.

Bhogal, who lives in Birmingham, England, suggested Mangione, who has been charged over the fatal shooting of health insurance CEO Brian Thompson, may have become radicalized by what he read on social media.

‘Luigi sent me a Twitter DM on June 10th, in which he asked me to show him how to curate his social media feeds,’ he told DailyMail.com. 

‘I forgot to get back to him, and a part of me wonders, if I’d helped him find good information sources sooner, whether he would still have gone on to allegedly shoot the CEO.’

The pair began speaking when Mangione, 26, took an interest in Bhogal’s blog about politics and ‘the digital age’ called The Prism, and reached out to him on X. 

Bhogal said they exchanged more than a dozen emails, seen by DailyMail.com, before sharing a two-hour video chat while Mangione was traveling in Japan.

‘He was left-wing on some things and right-wing on others,’ Bhogal recalled. ‘For instance, he was pro-equality of opportunity, but anti-woke: for example anti-DEI (and) anti-identity politics.

‘He opposed woke-ism because he didn’t believe it was an effective way to help minorities. 

‘He expressed interest in more rational, evidence-based forms of compassion, like effective altruism.’ 

‘We briefly touched on the differences between the UK and US healthcare systems,’ Bhogal added. 

‘Luigi complained about how expensive healthcare in the US was, and expressed envy at the UK’s nationalized health system.’

Bhogal said they also discussed Ted Kaczynski, the ‘Unabomber’ who used terrorism to campaign against modern technology. Mangione had previously appeared to praise Kaczynski on Goodreads. 

‘Luigi disapproved of the Unabomber’s actions, but was fascinated by his ideology, and shared his concerns about rampant consumerism gradually eroding our agency and alienating us from ourselves,’ Bhogal said. 

‘He expressed fears over smartphone addiction. Luigi asked me how to maximize agency in a world constantly trying to deprive us of it, so we also discussed that.

‘Overall, the impression I got of him, besides his curiosity and kindness, was a deep concern for the future of humanity, and a determination to improve himself and the world.’

Bhogal said his overriding impression of Mangione was that he was ‘one of the nicest people I’ve ever met’, who even bought him a subscription to Readwise Reader, an app designed to help users retain more information from books. 

The writer said he was ‘bewildered’ when his friend was charged with the fatal shooting of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson on Monday.  

‘He was so thoughtful and polite that he seemed like the last person I’d suspect of murdering someone,’ Bhogal told DailyMail.com. 

Ivy League engineering graduate Mangione was arrested on Monday morning moments after eating a hash brown in an Altoona, PA McDonald’s. 

Cops closed in on the alleged killer after an employee at the restaurant recognized him from surveillance images NYPD shared online in the wake of the Midtown Manhattan shooting. 

He was later charged with second-degree murder over the slaying of Thompson, 50, just before 7am on Wednesday outside the Hilton hotel where the exec had been set to make a speech to finance heavyweights later that day.

Cops closed in on the alleged killer after an employee at the restaurant recognized him from surveillance images NYPD shared online in the wake of the Midtown Manhattan shooting. 

Mangione appears to have led police on a 280-mile manhunt from New York City’s 6th Avenue to the small Pennsylvania city of Altoona, around 100 miles east of Pittsburgh. 

He left a trail of overt clues about his motive, including ammunition etched with the words ‘delay’ ‘deny’ and ‘depose’ and a bag of Monopoly board game money in his backpack left in Central Park. 

Officials believe the bullet etchings refer to the ‘three Ds of insurance’ – tactics used by American insurance giants to reject patients’ claims. 

This motive appeared to be even more clearly outlined in a handwritten manifesto cops seized from Mangione during his arrest on Monday, which the NYPD’s chief of detectives Joseph Kenny said expressed ‘ill will toward corporate America.’

‘To the Feds, I’ll keep this short, because I do respect what you do for our country,’ Mangione wrote in the three-page document. ‘To save you a lengthy investigation, I state plainly that I wasn’t working with anyone.’

‘I do apologize for any strife or traumas but it had to be done,’ Mangione added in the document. ‘Frankly, these parasites simply had it coming.’

Mangione also allegedly had a ghost gun believed to be the rare World War Two era-inspired 9mm pistol used in Thompson’s murder, which the New York Post reported was a Swiss-made Brugger & Thomet VP9, and a silencer. 

He was denied bond and not represented by an attorney during his arraignment in the Blair County Courthouse in Pennsylvania on Monday night. Mangione will next appear in court in New York at a later date.