Sen. Mike Lee slammed for disgusting tweets about Minnesota shooting

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

Utah Republican Sen. Mike Lee is facing a torrent of criticism after he sent a disturbing tweet about the Minnesota gunman who murdered Democratic state former House Speaker Melissa Hortman and her husband, Mark, and shot Democratic state Sen. John Hoffman, and his wife, Yvette.

On Sunday, as law enforcement officers were searching for the alleged murderer Vance Boelter, Lee tweeted an image of Boelter in the rubber mask he wore when he opened fire on the lawmakers. In text alongside the disturbing image, Lee wrote, "Nightmare on Waltz Street"—a misspelled reference to Minnesota Democratic Gov. Tim Walz, who was also on a list of Democratic officials Boelter wanted to kill.

Link to tweet

An hour earlier, Lee had also tweeted another image of Boelter in the rubber mask with the text, "This is what happens/When Marxists don’t get their way"—a message he was so proud of he pinned it to the top of his page.

Link to tweet

Lee sent the disturbing messages—which try to further the false GOP narrative that is painting Boelter as a Democrat rather than the President Donald Trump-supporting, anti-abortion zealot he is—as other politicians were calling for politicians to tone down the rhetoric in order to avoid encouraging more radicalized people to commit violence against elected officials.

Link to tweet

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2025/6/16/2328334/-GOP-senator-slammed-for-disgusting-tweets-about-Minnesota-shooting

And these Tweets are still up. I left X after getting a suspension for not being nice to Gym Jordan. They wanted me to acknowledge my wrongdoing to which I said hell no.

I don't miss it.

[moondust]

1. Quick Mike!

Get into your Jesus costume and hold up a Bible!

[Varaddem]

2. Our tax dollars

Are being paid to this ignorant piece of garbage!
This does not look good for the people who put him in the position. he hates Americans.

[kwolf68]

3. Where is MagoLoonMike

Advocating To censure Mike Lee? Or is killing Democrats now just protocol and to be expected and joked about? Hello Mike...Mike...YOU THERE?

[Tribetime]

4. Sick bastard finds it funny kids don't have parents

[kwolf68]

5. Party of

Family Values.

Time for the opposition party to start calling out these hypocrites forcefully. This is not a normal Republican Party anymore. They are cruel, vile and hypocritical liars.

[LetMyPeopleVote]

6. 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.