Lee Removes Posts About Minnesota Shootings

UPDATE Jun 17, 2025 7:03 PM CDT

Republican Sen. Mike Lee has removed posts on his personal X account that appeared to make light of the Minnesota shootings, including one that dubbed them "Nightmare on Waltz Street," the Hill reports. Other posts blamed the shooting of lawmakers on "Marxists." Democratic Sen. Tina Smith, a friend of slain state Rep. Melissa Hortman, said she confronted Lee about the posts Monday. "I told him that I thought it was brutal and cruel. He should think about the implications of what he's saying and doing," Smith said, per CNN. "It just further fuels this hatred and misinformation." She said he seemed to listen to her and she thought the Utah senator "was honestly sort of surprised to be confronted in this way."

Jun 16, 2025 4:41 PM CDT

Sen. Mike Lee's posts mocking the shootings of Minnesota legislators and their spouses and blaming the crime on the left failed to amuse everyone—including a Senate colleague who was friends with the state representative who was killed. "I have condemned what Mike Lee did here at home, and I will speak to him about this when I return," Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar said on MSNBC, per the Hill. "And what I'm going to tell him is: This isn't funny."

• On his personal X account, Lee had posted a photo of the suspect and another with a masked man in the doorway of a lawmaker's home with the line, "This is what happens When Marxists don't get their way." Later on Sunday morning, he posted another photo of the suspect with the comment, "Nightmare on Waltz Street," apparently trying to refer to Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz.

The day before, Rep. Melissa Hortman and her husband, Mark, had been killed in their home, and state Sen. John Hoffman and his wife, Yvette, had been gravely wounded. "Marxism is a deadly mental illness," Lee wrote, pointing out that a flier for the anti-Trump protests last weekend was found in the suspect's car. Other right-wing voices, including Elon Musk, made similar claims that the shooter was driven by leftist politics, per Axios. There's no evidence of that: The suspect was appointed to two state boards by Democrats, but people who know him say he's a supporter of President Trump and an opponent of abortion rights. He's also reported to have had lists of Planned Parenthood locations and doctors, as well as names of Democratic lawmakers. The responses to the Utah Republican included:

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• "Grow the hell up" — Michael Steele, the former chairman of the Republican National Committee
• "Truly disgusting behavior from a United States Senator" — Dan Pfeiffer, podcaster and former Barack Obama aide
• "He must resign or the Senate must expel him" — Elevate Utah PAC
• "Pathetic" — Democratic Party

After outrage surfaced, Lee posted a more common response to the shootings on his official Senate account denouncing the crime, per the New York Times.