{"id":2728,"date":"2025-06-21T15:46:09","date_gmt":"2025-06-21T15:46:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/2728\/"},"modified":"2025-06-21T15:46:09","modified_gmt":"2025-06-21T15:46:09","slug":"sen-mike-lees-posts-on-minnesota-killings-incensed-his-colleagues","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/2728\/","title":{"rendered":"Sen. Mike Lee’s posts on Minnesota killings incensed his colleagues"},"content":{"rendered":"

WASHINGTON (AP) \u2014 Mike Lee<\/a> has in recent years become one of the Senate\u2019s most prolific social media posters, his presence seen in thousands of posts, often late at night, about politics. Fellow senators have grown accustomed to the Utah Republican\u2019s pugnacious online persona, mostly brushing it off in the name of collegiality.<\/p>\n

That is, until this past week.<\/p>\n

His posts, after the June 14 fatal shooting<\/a> of a Minnesota lawmaker and her husband, incensed Lee\u2019s colleagues, particularly senators who were friends with the victims. It all added to the charged atmosphere in the Capitol as lawmakers once more confronted political violence<\/a> in America.<\/p>\n

As the Senate convened for the week, Sen. Tina Smith, D-Minn., marched past a crowd of reporters and headed toward the Senate floor: \u201cI can\u2019t talk right now, I have to go find Sen. Lee.\u201d<\/p>\n

Smith, whose name was listed in the suspected shooter\u2019s notebooks<\/a> recovered by law enforcement officials, spoke to Lee for several minutes. The next day, Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., did the same. By midday Tuesday, Lee had deleted his tweets.<\/p>\n

\u201cI would say he seemed surprised to be confronted,\u201d Smith later told reporters.<\/p>\n

The shooting unfolds<\/p>\n

On the morning of June 14, Gov. Tim Walz, D-Minn., announced that former state House Speaker Melissa Hortman and her husband, Mark, had been shot and killed in their home outside Minneapolis. Another Democratic lawmaker, state Sen. John Hoffman, and his wife, Yvette, were critically injured, in a shooting at their home nearby.<\/p>\n

The next day, as police searched for the shooter, Lee posted a photo of the alleged shooter with the caption \u201cNightmare on Waltz street\u201d \u2014 an apparent misspelled attempt to shift blame toward Walz, who was his party\u2019s vice presidential nominee in 2024.<\/p>\n

In a separate post on his personal account, @BasedMikeLee, the senator shared photos of the alleged suspect alongside the caption: \u201cthis is what happens When Marxists don\u2019t get their way.\u201d <\/p>\n

On his official Senate social media account, Lee was \u201ccondemning this senseless violence, and praying for the victims and their families.\u201d <\/p>\n

A spokesperson for Lee did not respond to a request for comment. <\/p>\n

The man arrested, Vance Luther Boelter, 57, held deeply religious and politically conservative views. After moving to Minnesota about a decade ago, Boelter volunteered for a position on a state workforce development board, first appointed by then-Gov. Mark Dayton, a Democrat, in 2016, and later by Walz. <\/p>\n

Boelter has been charged<\/a> with two counts of murder and two of attempted murder.<\/p>\n

Lee\u2019s online posts draw bipartisan backlash<\/p>\n

Once a critic of Donald Trump, Lee has since become one of the president\u2019s most loyal allies. Lee\u2019s online persona is well established, but this year it has become especially prominent: a Salt Lake Tribune analysis<\/a> found that in the first three months of 2025, Lee averaged nearly 100 posts per day on X.<\/p>\n

What was different this time was the backlash came not just from Democrats.<\/p>\n

To Sen. Kevin Cramer, R-N.D., Lee\u2019s posts were \u201cinsensitive, to say the least, inappropriate, for sure\u201d and \u201cnot even true.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI just think whenever you rush to a judgment like this, when your political instincts kick in during a tragedy, you probably should realign some priorities,\u201d Cramer said.<\/p>\n

Republican state Rep. Nolan West wrote on social media that his respect for Lee had been \u201crescinded.\u201d <\/p>\n

A spokesperson for Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., did not respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n

Last Monday night, after Smith\u2019s confrontation with Lee, a senior member of her staff sent a pointed message to Lee\u2019s office.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is important for your office to know how much additional pain you\u2019ve caused on an unspeakably horrific weekend,\u201d wrote Ed Shelleby, Smith\u2019s deputy chief of staff. He added, \u201cI pray that Senator Lee and your office begin to see the people you work with in this building as colleagues and human beings.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lee avoided reporters for much of the week, though he did tell them he had deleted the posts after a \u201cquick\u201d discussion with Klobuchar. Lee has not apologized publicly.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had a good discussion, and I\u2019m very glad he took it down,\u201d Klobuchar said at a news conference.<\/p>\n

Tragedy prompts reflection in Congress<\/p>\n

The uproar came at a tense time for the Senate, which fashions itself as a political institution that values decorum and respect. <\/p>\n

Senators are under intense pressure to react to the Trump administration\u2019s fast-paced agenda<\/a> and multiple global conflicts. Republicans are in high-stakes negotiations over the party\u2019s tax and spending cuts plan. Democrats are anxious about how to confront the administration, especially after federal agents briefly detained Sen. Alex Padilla, D-Calif.,<\/a> at a recent Department of Homeland Security news conference<\/a> in California.<\/p>\n

Lawmakers believe it\u2019s time to lower the temperature.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know why Mike took the comments down, but it was the right thing to do,\u201d said Sen. Ben Ray Luj\u00e1n, D-N.M. \u201cI appreciate my Republican colleagues who were very clear with their observations. And those that spoke up, I want to commend them.\u201d<\/p>\n

He added: \u201cWe just all have to talk to each other. And what I learned from this week is people need to lean on each other more, and just get to know each other more as well.\u201d<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

Associated Press reporter Mary Clare Jalonick contributed to this report.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WASHINGTON (AP) \u2014 Mike Lee has in recent years become one of the Senate\u2019s most prolific social media…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":2729,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,3],"tags":[3666,3667,3672,69,3670,3671,57,3668,3673,3675,3663,3669,50,3674,80,3677,3665,3664,89,3676,61,67,132,68,436,424,93],"class_list":{"0":"post-2728","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-states","8":"category-us","9":"tag-amy-klobuchar","10":"tag-ben-ray-lujn","11":"tag-brandon-belt","12":"tag-donald-trump","13":"tag-ed-shelleby","14":"tag-fredrik-reinfeldt","15":"tag-general-news","16":"tag-kevin-cramer","17":"tag-mark-dayton","18":"tag-marsha-mason","19":"tag-minnesota","20":"tag-mn-state-wire","21":"tag-news","22":"tag-political-violence","23":"tag-politics","24":"tag-shootings","25":"tag-tim-walz","26":"tag-tina-smith","27":"tag-u-s-democratic-party","28":"tag-u-s-department-of-homeland-security","29":"tag-u-s-news","30":"tag-united-states","31":"tag-unitedstates","32":"tag-us","33":"tag-ut-state-wire","34":"tag-utah","35":"tag-washington-news"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114722136601853654","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2728","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2728"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2728\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2729"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2728"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2728"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2728"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}