Mike Lee confronted by Minnesota colleague over shooting comments

[demmiblue]

“Honestly, he seemed a little surprised to be confronted,” Sen. Tina Smith said.

Sen. Mike Lee of Utah was confronted by a Senate colleague Monday over his social media post that blamed the Minnesota shootings over the weekend that killed a former Democratic legislative leader on “Marxists.”

Democratic Sen. Tina Smith, a friend of murdered state Rep. Melissa Hortman, spoke to the Utah Republican in a hallway off the Senate floor during evening votes.

“I wanted him to know how much pain that caused me and the other people in my state, and I think around the country, who think that this was a brutal attack,” Smith told reporters afterward. “I don’t know whether Senator Lee thought fully through what it was — you have to ask him — but I needed him to hear from me directly what impact I think his cruel statement had on me, his colleague.”

Lee on Sunday morning posted two messages on his X account that appeared to associate the perpetrator with political causes on the left. “This is what happens,” one said, “When Marxists don’t get their way.” Another included a reference to Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz.

https://www.politico.com/live-updates/2025/06/16/congress/tina-smith-confronts-mike-lee-00409329

[kwolf68]

1. Mike Lee

Is one of the worst humans out there. How the fuck does he muster such vile disgust knowing 2 people were murdered in cold blood? You worthless vermin. Way to go Utah, I am sure you are good people, but he isn't giving me great faith in any of you.

[RandomNumbers]

2. Sadly he has a lot of competition for that award

"worst human out there"


ETA: you did say "one of".

[SocialDemocrat61]

3. Bravo Tina Smith

Minnesota is lucky to have her.

[marble falls]

4. We need to pack his e-mail account.

[Enter stage left]

6. One of the reasons we left Utah is because those stupid fucks in Utah kept electing...

People like Mike Lee.

Any rational person should have known after his first term, he was incompetent and his whole goal was power.

Goodbye Utah, dig yourselves out without our help.

[LetMyPeopleVote]

7. MaddowBlog-Too many Republicans embrace conspiracy theories and misinfo after Minnesota shootings

After the murders, Gov. Tim Walz called for "grace and compassion and vision and compromise and decency." Some on the right chose a different course.

After the murders in Minnesota, Tim Walz called for "grace and compassion and vision and compromise and decency." Some Republicans chose a far uglier course.

Take the increasingly unhinged Sen. Mike Lee, for example. www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddo...

— Steve Benen (@stevebenen.com) 2025-06-16T15:59:22.764Z

https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/maddowblog/republican-sen-mike-lee-peddles-misinformation-minnesota-shootings-sus-rcna213217

As is often the case, the conspiratorial ugliness quickly spread from the Republican base to Republican officials. Commenting on the murders, Sen. Bernie Moreno wrote online, “The degree to which the extreme left has become radical, violent, and intolerant is both stunning and terrifying.”

As HuffPost noted, one of Moreno’s far-right colleagues went even further.

Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) is facing criticism over social media posts mocking this weekend’s deadly shootings in Minnesota targeting Democratic lawmakers. While the suspected killer was still on the run ... Lee fired off a series of messages. ... One suggested the suspect, Vance Boelter, was into “Marxism,” despite reports that he was a religious conservative who had attended rallies in support of President Donald Trump.

In a separate online item, Lee showed a photo of the alleged shooter in a mask, alongside the senator’s message that read, “Nightmare on Waltz Street,” in apparent reference to Walz.

Lee then pinned one of his tweets — which read, “This is what happens when Marxists don’t get their way,” referring to the deadly shootings — to the top of his feed for special emphasis.

The obvious problem with garbage like this is that it’s factually wrong: Everything we now know so far about the alleged gunman suggests that he was an anti-abortion Trump voter, not a far-left Marxist......

But let’s not lose sight of the fact that Lee’s trajectory is emblematic of a larger and unsettling pattern.

In the not-too-distant past, the Utah Republican presented himself as something of a conservative intellectual. He withdrew his Trump endorsement ahead of Election Day 2016, and there was even some discussion that the senator wanted to be considered for the U.S. Supreme Court.

But that was before his descent. A couple of years ago, Lee started amplifying weird allegations from conspiracy theorist Alex Jones’ InfoWars website. Soon after, the GOP senator endorsed baseless Jan. 6 conspiracy theories. In the months that followed, he pushed AI-generated misinformation as if it were real.

Now, as Bloomberg News’ Steven Dennis noted, the Utahn has been reduced to “online trolling on assassinations.”

To appreciate the tragedy of Republican politics in the Trump era, look no further than the devolution of Mike Lee.

[Karasu]

17. They've been the party of conspiracy theories since his first fucking term.

[UTUSN]

8. K&R

[UTUSN]

9. K&R

[GenThePerservering]

10. Appealing to their higher self does nothing

they have no 'higher self'. Saying the comments "hurt" and were cruel does nothing - power is the point, cruely is a feature. You have to kick these people in the balls with the truth - they're disgusting liars, cheats and traitors. Enough with the 'hurt' business! The best defence is a good offence.

[sheshe2]

11. Good for her.

I can't imagine the pain it caused her to do so. He is one heartless bastard.

I feel her pain with the loss of her dear friend.

[struggle4progress]

12. Well, Mikey Lee and Old Scratch

they were the best of friends

So when Mikey Lee needed lies one day
Old Scratch quickly found a box of them
and put it on a footstool between the shameless twain
saying Take your pick, my Mikey dear,
my loss will be your gain

[AverageOldGuy]

13. "I don't know whether Lee full thought through . . ."

I know.

He do think it through and decided he would say something to bring the most pain to the families and the most applause from the MAGAts.

[MagickMuffin]

14. Unfortunately, Sen. Tina Smith, he doesn't see you as a colleague

He doesn’t acknowledge that Democrats have the right to exist.


Pseudo christians parading as through life without a clue.

[irisblue]

15. A lack of empathy. How do his wife & kids deal with that?

[Grokenstein]

16. "Honestly, he seemed a little surprised to be confronted"

Douchebros are always "a little surprised" to get clapback. It's always just a joke, just a prank, why are you mad, get over yourself, etc. It's never because they're the shittiest people, you just need a sense of humor, ell-oh-ell.

[KY_EnviroGuy]

18. Let this man never again profess to be Christian.

Oh, wait.

Republicans do have their own Heritage Foundation Bible........

[Tribetime]

19. Stoking more violence on Demorats

[Jack Valentino]

20. So are anti-abortion extremists and Trump voters called "marxists" now ???

[LetMyPeopleVote]

21. Mike Lee needs to resign

[SalamanderSleeps]

22. Two Words. Mountain Meadow. eom

[LetMyPeopleVote]

23. Mike Lee deletes posts about Minnesota lawmaker shootings after blowback

Mike Lee needs to apologize or resign

Link to tweet

https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/5355192-mike-lee-posts-minnesota-shootings/

Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) on Tuesday deleted social media posts he made blaming the left for the fatal shooting of a Minnesota state legislator.

As of Tuesday afternoon, the posts that seemingly made light of the shootings that killed state Rep. Melissa Hortman (D) and her husband and wounded state Sen. John Hoffman (D) and his wife were gone from the Utah Republican’s @BasedMikeLee account.

One post from over the weekend had dubbed the killing the “Nightmare on Waltz Street,” an apparent reference to Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D), while the other said that: “This is what happens When Marxists don’t get their way.”

The move came after intense blowback from Democrats. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) publicly called on Lee to take down the posts and urged President Trump and Republicans to do the same, arguing that Lee might listen to them.

“I asked him to do it yesterday,” Schumer said at a morning press conference, calling the posts “disgusting.”

On Monday, Sen. Tina Smith (D-Minn.), a friend of Hortman’s, confronted Lee prior to a Senate GOP conference meeting about the party’s massive tax bill. She told reporters that she wanted him to hear from her directly “about how painful that was and how brutal that was to see that on what was just a horrible, brutal weekend.”

“I think too often in the Senate we talk to each other through one another and I wanted him to hear it from me directly,” she said.