Mangione supporters should not have been given press passes, mayor says

U.S. Luigi Mangione supporters should not have been given press passes for court, Mayor Mamdani says By Mark Osborne May 19, 2026 / 4:50 PM EDT / CBS News Add CBS News on Google New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani said a group of three Luigi Mangione supporters who go by the self-styled nickname "The Mangionistas" should not have been granted press passes to attend Monday's court hearing for the accused killer of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson."Those three individuals should not have received press passes," Mamdani told reporters at an unrelated press conference on Tuesday. "My administration is reviewing the entire process and the standards for press credentialing."Lena Weissbrot, one of the women who was given a press pass by city officials and attended the hearing on Monday, writes for The Bicoastal Beat, a website she and a colleague started last year. Weissbrot wrote several stories about Mangione's pretrial hearings in December, and she was vocal outside the courthouse Monday, spewing hate-filled rhetoric about the victim."His children are better off without him," Weissbrot told reporters outside the court. "They need to learn to not be like their dad — and enjoy the blood money."Ashley Rojas, another of the self-styled "Mangionistas," told reporters, "F--- Brian Thompson, I don't give a flying f--- he died." Luigi Mangione supporter Ashley Rojas speaks to the Daily News outside Manhattan Criminal Court on Monday, May 18, 2026.  New York Daily News/Tribune News Service via Getty Images The approval process for press passes falls under the Mayor's Office of Media and Entertainment, with Mamdani saying they would "initiate our own process to review" the guidelines. NYC press passes were previously approved by the New York Police Department, but following a lawsuit that responsibility was transferred to the mayor's office in January 2022."There's a good-natured debate to be had about where a press pass should extend and where it shouldn't," the may...