In what’s almost certainly a first in the annals of high-profile shootings, the president of the United States went on Fox News Friday morning and announced on live television that he believed a suspect had been caught in the killing earlier this week of conservative commentator Charlie Kirk.
“I think with high degree of certainty, we have him in custody,” Trump said on Fox & Friends, during a rare in-studio appearance, since he was in New York following Thursday’s 9/11 anniversary commemorations.
Question: Any updates on the suspect?
Trump: I think with high degree of certainty, we have him in custody pic.twitter.com/MtxDomrndw
— Acyn (@Acyn) September 12, 2025
Trump also stated on the Fox show that a “minister” was involved with catching the suspect.
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“It was a minister, and the minister went to a friend – a minister who’s involved in law enforcement, by the way, and his good friend is a top US marshal, and they took it from there, and then it was a father got involved,” Trump said on TV.
A press conference was called not long after, when the shooting suspect was identified as Tyler Robinson, a 22-year-old Utah resident. Law enforcement officials told NBC News that a family member had turned Robinson in. Despite days of speculation and calls from the president and law enforcement for serious crackdowns on “the left,” it’s not clear at the moment what authorities believe may have been Robinson’s motive.
CNN reported that Robinson had confessed the killing to his father, who notified authorities.
The suspect in the murder of Charlie Kirk confessed to his father that he was the shooter. His father told authorities and secured his son until they could arrive to pick him up— Sources tell @evanperez @HBRabinowitz @HolmesLybrand
— Kristen Holmes (@KristenhCNN) September 12, 2025
It’s also worth noting that an earlier suspect had been in custody before he was interrogated and released.
Some on social media tried to spin out things about Robinson’s background from social media posts, which included photos of Robinson with guns. Another found that Robinson appeared to have dressed as Donald Trump for Halloween, when he was a child.
Alleged Charlie Kirk shooter Tyler Robinson wore a Trump costume for Halloween pic.twitter.com/Ycoji89AQ1
— PatriotTakes 🇺🇸 (@patriottakes) September 12, 2025
Photo courtesy of an X screenshot.
