Trump rips public fawning of accused CEO killer Luigi Mangione as a ‘sickness’: ‘People seem to admire him’

President-elect Donald Trump in an exchange with reporters on Monday ripped the public fawning over Luigi Mangione, the 26-year-old Ivy League graduate accused of gunning down UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in New York City earlier this month.

“I think it’s really terrible that some people seem to admire him — like him,” Trump bemoaned during a press conference at his Mar-a-Lago resort. “It was cold-blooded, just a cold-blooded, horrible killing.”

Trump, 78, added that he hoped it was “fake news” that so many people could be cheering on a man charged with murdering a husband and father of two sons.

“You just can’t believe some people — and maybe it’s fake news — I don’t know,” the president-elect went on. “It seems that there’s a certain appetite for [the assasin]. I don’t get it.”

“How people can like this guy — that’s a sickness actually, that’s really very bad. Especially the way it was done, it was so bad — right in the back,” he lamented.

Earlier this month, Thompson, 50, was shot in the back outside a hotel on Sixth Avenue in Manhattan.

Authorities later apprehended Mangione, a tech whiz who apparently used some of the skills he picked up getting his engineering and computer science degrees from the University of Pennsylvania, a former pal previously told The Post, to 3-D print a firearm that he allegedly used for the shooting.

In the time since, a plethora of netizens have praised Mangione, groveling over images of his six-pack abs and glowing about the accused killer railing against the US private health insurance industry in a handwritten manifesto.

Former Washington Post media journalist Taylor Lorenz said she took “joy” in the killing. Late-night comedian Jimmy Kimmel joked about his writers salivating over Mangione’s chiseled physique and expressing a desire to be placed on the jury that deliberates his case.

Politicians such as Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) have channeled the rage against health insurance companies to downplay Thompson’s execution.

“Violence is never the answer, but people can only be pushed so far,” the Massachusetts Democrat said, before issuing a follow-up statement: “Violence is never the answer. Period. I should have been much clearer that there is never a justification for murder.”

Evidence suggests that Mangione struggled with back pain, later received surgery and had fumed over the health insurance industry. UnitedHealthcare claims that he was not insured by the company.

Trump has faced multiple assassination attempts, including during his July 13 Butler, Pa., rally, in which a bullet came within a quarter inch of killing him, and on Sept. 15 at the Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach, Fla., where the Secret Service foiled would-be assassin Ryan Wesley Routh’s plot.

Despite some of the fanfare online, some polling indicates that Mangione is unpopular with the broader public.

Some 61% of Americans had a strongly or somewhat negative view of him, according to a poll by the Center for Strategic Politics.

Fundraising platforms have slapped down endeavors to raise cash for his defense.

Mangione has been slapped with charges of second-degree murder, carrying a fake ID and unlawful possession of a firearm.