By Mariane Angela

Copyright dailycaller

Republican Louisiana Sen. John Kennedy tore into an ABC News reporter Tuesday for characterizing text messages between the suspect accused of assassinating Charlie Kirk and his romantic partner as “touching.”

ABC News reporter Matt Gutman described the messages exchanged between Kirk’s accused killer and the suspect’s transgender partner as “touching” during a segment Tuesday. Appearing on “The Ingraham Angle,” Kennedy mocked the description and questioned the reporter’s judgment.

“Some people need a shock collar. Touching? The guy just murdered another human being. And he’s talking about it to his love interest. It reminded me of something my dog would bring up,” Kennedy told host Laura Ingraham. “You know, I try to be tolerant of other points of view. I really do, but that wasn’t touching. And no fair-minded person can call it touching.”

Ingraham said the press has spent years vilifying President Donald Trump’s supporters while extending compassion to those accused of targeting them. Kennedy blamed both the media and social platforms for rewarding inflammatory rhetoric. (RELATED: Watch the Daily Caller’s documentary “Groomed”)

“Some of this is the fault of the media. A lot of it is the fault of social media. Let’s face it. Social media has lowered the cost of being an a-hole,” Kennedy said. “People do things on social media that they would never do to each other’s face. And it’s become just rage bait. I don’t have a solution to it yet. We can talk about that another time, but that’s a big part of the problem.”

Authorities reviewed messages that said Tyler Robinson admitted to killing Kirk and told his partner he planned to surrender. When the partner asked why he carried out the attack, Robinson replied that he “had enough of [Kirk’s] hatred” and claimed “some hate can’t be negotiated.”

Despite early efforts by public figures to portray Robinson as a conservative Christian due to his family ties, Republican Utah Gov. Spencer Cox and investigators countered that narrative, revealing Robinson had embraced “deeply indoctrinated leftist ideology.”

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