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.
A spokesperson for Lee did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Lee’s personal X account, @BasedMikeLee, has increasingly become a forum for the senator’s sharply partisan and sometimes conspiratorial views.
Authorities have not commented on the motives behind the killings of Hortman and her husband, as well as the shootings of another state lawmaker and his wife. But law enforcement representatives say suspect Vance Boelter targeted exclusively Democratic officials, and friends and former colleagues told the AP that he held “deeply religious and politically conservative views.”
Smith and fellow Minnesota Democratic Sen. Amy Klobuchar both knew Hortman and have said they were dismayed by Lee’s X posts. Lee’s office separately circulated a more staid statement “condemning this senseless violence, and praying for the victims and their families.”
“I think, too often in the Senate, we talk to one another through other people, and I wanted him to hear from me directly about what impact,” Smith said after her conversation. “I hope that my talking with him will cause him to think more about the hateful things that he has been putting out on his personal X account that really should have no place in our public discourse.”
Asked about Lee’s reaction, Smith said, “Honestly, he seemed a little surprised to be confronted.”
