- Utah Sen. Mike Lee is being criticized for apparent jokes about the killing of a Minnesota lawmaker on social media.
- Lee's posts, a pair of which have since been deleted, speculated suspect's political alignment, drawing condemnation from Democratic politicians.
- Critics, including Sen. Amy Klobuchar, said she would tell Lee: "This is not a joke."
SALT LAKE CITY — Utah Sen. Mike Lee quietly deleted a pair of posts containing what appear to be jokes about the man who police believe shot and killed a Minnesota lawmaker and her husband on Saturday, which prompted criticism from his two Senate colleagues who represent the Gopher State.
In a widely shared post from his personal X account on Sunday, Lee, a Republican, shared two pictures of the suspect in the shootings, saying: "Nightmare on Waltz Street," an apparent misspelling of the name of Minnesota's Democratic Gov. Tim Walz and reference to the 1984 horror film "A Nightmare on Elm Street."
The post followed several others on Saturday and Sunday speculating that the suspect was a "Marxist" and "not MAGA," and came as the suspect was still at large. Lee's post was no longer available as of Tuesday, but his earlier posts blaming the political left for the murders remained online.
Lee has not spoken publicly about the posts and ignored questions from reporters at the Capitol on Monday.
Vance Boelter was arrested Sunday following the largest manhunt in Minnesota history, after police say he shot and killed a Democratic state assemblywoman and her husband and wounded another lawmaker and that lawmaker's spouse. Walz, last year's Democratic vice presidential nominee, called the killings a "politically motivated assassination."
Police say Boelter posed as a police officer and wore a rubber mask when entering the home of state Sen. John Hoffman. Hoffman and his wife, Yvette, were wounded, while state Rep. Melissa Hortman and her husband, Mark, were killed.
Lee's comments were met with frustration from both of Minnesota's senators, one of whom reportedly pulled Lee out of a private GOP meeting Monday to address him face to face. Minnesota Sen. Tina Smith appeared visibly upset after the exchange, per the Semafor news platform.
Tina Smith just pulled Mike Lee out of a Republicans-only briefing on their tax-and-spending bill.
— Eleanor Mueller (@Eleanor_Mueller) June 16, 2025
The pair spoke for a couple of minutes before Smith walked away. When I asked what she said to him, she said "let me just gather myself" before rushing back onto the Senate floor. pic.twitter.com/xr68ZRJUwA
"I wanted him to hear from me directly about how painful that was, and how brutal it was, to see that on what was just a horribly brutal weekend," Smith told reporters. "He didn't say a lot, frankly. I think he was a bit stunned."
She added that Lee should "think about the implications of what he's saying" and said his comments "fuel this hatred and misinformation."
A top Smith aide also wrote a scathing letter to Lee's staff, saying the senator and his team "exploited the murder of a lifetime public servant and her husband" and that he prays "if, God forbid, you ever find yourselves having to deal with anything similar, you find yourselves on the receiving end of the kind of grace and compassion that Sen. Mike Lee could not muster."
"Did you see this as an excellent opportunity to get likes and retweet?" the letter asked. "Have you absolutely no conscience? No decency?"
A top staffer to Sen. Tina Smith emailed Sen. Mike Lee's top staffers on Monday about "how much additional pain you've caused on an unspeakably horrific weekend"
— Burgess Everett (@burgessev) June 16, 2025
Full email below pic.twitter.com/0284qGSzCf
What Lee said
Lee, a close ally of President Donald Trump, began speculating about the political alignment of the suspect shortly after he was identified Saturday afternoon, posting: "My guess: He's not MAGA," referencing the acronym from Trump's 2016 campaign slogan, "Make America Great Again."
Later that night, he shared a post accusing "the left" of being a "full-blown domestic terrorist organization," adding: "Marxism kills. Americans must reject it — always." An hour later, Lee shared a post referencing Boelter's reappointment to a state board by Walz and said: "Marxism is a deadly mental illness."
Though Marxism refers to a system of political thought developed by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, Lee and other Republicans often use the term to deride Democrats and the political left writ large.
Boelter's motives for his alleged attacks remain unclear, but law enforcement officials said he had a list of possible targets, including dozens of Minnesota Democrats and abortion providers. Friends described Boelter to the Associated Press as an evangelical Christian who attended campaign rallies for Trump. He was registered as a Republican in Oklahoma in 2004, before moving to Minnesota, according to records.
After news broke of a shooting at an anti-Trump protest in Salt Lake City, Lee shared a video of demonstrators running for safety and urged: "Make it stop. Condemn all political violence." An innocent bystander, fashion designer Arthur Folasa Ah Loo, was killed, Salt Lake police said Sunday.
The senator posted an image Sunday morning from police showing the Minnesota suspect wearing a rubber mask outside of the Hoffmans' home.
"This is what happens when Marxists don't get their way," he said.
That post was pinned to the top of Lee's personal profile as of 9 a.m. Monday, but was removed from the top of the profile shortly after KSL.com reached out to a Lee spokesman for comment.
Just 25 minutes after the previous post, Lee shared a pair of photos of Boelter, with the caption "Nightmare on Waltz Street." The post has been shared thousands of times and has more than 10 million views.
A spokesman for Lee did not respond to a request for comment or clarification on the meaning behind Lee's posts.
Lee weighed in on the shootings from his official Senate account for the first time Sunday afternoon.
"These hateful attacks have no place in Utah, Minnesota or anywhere in America," Lee said. "Please join me in condemning this senseless violence and praying for the victims and their families."
Lee introduced a Senate resolution just last week condemning former FBI Director James Comey for a picture of seashells he posted in May, arranged to form the letters "8647," which Lee said was a threat to assassinate the president. The resolution also calls for an investigation into Comey's post, which Comey said was not meant as a threat.
"Congress must hold Mr. Comey accountable for his violations of the public trust and preserve the rule of law to protect our institutions from those that seek to sow discord and promote violence against their political opponents," Lee's resolution reads.
'What we've come to expect'
Lee's posts drew condemnation from politicians in Utah and across the country, including some calls for the senator to resign.
"I have condemned what Mike Lee did here at home and I will speak to him about this when I return. And what I'm going to tell him is this isn't funny," Sen. Amy Klobuchar, a Democrat from Minnesota, told MSNBC's "Morning Joe." "This was an incredible woman, her husband, her two kids. Yesterday, on Father's Day — there was not Father's Day for them. They lost both their parents."
"So, that's what I'm going to tell Sen. Lee when I get back to Washington today, because this is not a laughing matter and certainly what we're seeing in increasing violence and this evil man who did this — this is not a joke," she added.
The political temperature has been rising for years in the U.S. and Utah, where the number of threats against elected officials rose significantly during last year's election cycle.
"@SenMikeLee is why I will not equivocate or both-sides the moment we're in," Utah state Sen. Nate Blouin, D-Millcreek, said in a post responding to Lee's comments. "He's a prime example, in Utah and nationally, of the Republican Party's fall into conspiracy and lies. If your reaction is to 'just let it go,' I need you to rethink your priors."
"It is not my next-door neighbor with a Trump flag or the guy next to him with an NRA flag amongst others waving proudly that are making me literally lose sleep at night, it is 'leaders' like Mike Lee," Blouin continued.
Blouin called for Lee to be removed from his post as chairman of the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources.
Brian King, a former state lawmaker and chairman of the Utah Democratic Party, said of Lee's posts: "Sadly, this is what we've come to expect from Mike Lee: detached from reality and fully aligned with extremist politics."
"On Father's Day, Mike Lee mocked a political shooting that left two children orphaned," said Caroline Gleich, a Democratic candidate for Senate last year. "State Rep. Melissa Hortman and her husband, John, were gunned down. Nov. 7, 2028, Utah will replace him," referring to Lee.
She later shared a post calling for Lee to resign his seat in light of the posts.
