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President Trump said “big progress” had been made as of Thursday evening in finding the assassin who killed conservative activist Charlie Kirk, but he held back on providing too many details on where the manhunt currently stands.
“I hear they’re making big progress, and we’ll see what happens,” he told reporters, when asked if he was concerned it had been 24 hours since the shooting without a suspect being in custody.
The FBI earlier on Thursday had suspended a planned afternoon press conference on the Kirk shooting at Utah Valley University because of “rapid developments” in the case. The FBI released photos of a person of interest in the case and offered up to a $100,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of the shooter.
The press conference has yet to be held. Officials said early Thursday morning they had received more than 100 leads in the case.
When asked about the motivation of the killer, Trump replied, “I have an indication” and then stopped short of answering a question on whether he thought the shooter was a trained assassin.
The president, while leaving the White House to travel to the Yankees game in New York, called the assassin “an animal” and said he was optimistic the person would be found.
“He’s an animal, total animal, and hopefully they’ll have him, and they’ll get him. What he did is disgraceful,” Trump said. “Charlie Kirk was a great person, a great man, great in every way, especially with youth. And what he did, what this man did, was disgraceful. So hopefully we’ll have him and we will deal with him very appropriately.”
Trump said earlier Thursday he had been updated on the search for the killer, adding “they have a virtual manhunt out there. So we’ll see what happens. We hope you get them.”
