Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, removed posts on his personal X account about Saturday's fatal attack on a Minnesota lawmaker and her husband after he faced fierce backlash from Democrats.
Sen. Tina Smith, D-Minn., who was friends with the slain lawmaker, told reporters Monday that she confronted Lee about his post. “I needed him to hear from me directly what impact I think his cruel statement had on me, his colleague,” she said.
Lee had written in one post about the Saturday assassination of Democratic state Rep. Melissa Hortman and her husband, Mark, that “this is what happens When Marxists don’t get their way.” In another, he posted a photo of the suspect and captioned it "Nightmare on Waltz Street," an apparent reference to Democratic Gov. Tim Walz.
Several Democrats had called on Lee to take down the posts, which he'd published Saturday and Sunday. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York said at a news conference Tuesday that he asked Lee to remove them and that "he wouldn't listen to me."
Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., told reporters she also spoke to Lee about his posts, but she declined to divulge details of their conversation. “Sen. Lee and I had a good discussion, and I’m very glad he took it down,” said Klobuchar, who has a relationship with Lee from years of working together on the Judiciary Committee.
Smith said Tuesday she was "glad" the posts were removed, "but I haven’t heard anything from him about why he took them down, and I certainly didn’t hear an apology."
Some of Lee's posts were still visible Tuesday afternoon, including one from Saturday night that said, “Marxism kills.”
On Lee's official Senate X account, his posts struck a different tone. "These hateful attacks have no place in Utah, Minnesota, or anywhere in America. Please join me in condemning this senseless violence, and praying for the victims and their families," he wrote.
Prosecutors said the suspect, Vance Boelter, is also responsible for the nonfatal shooting of state Sen. John Hoffman and his wife, Yvette. Acting U.S. Attorney Joseph Thompson said Boelter’s car had notebooks with the names of more than 45 state and federal elected officials, and the federal criminal complaint against him says officials named in the notebooks were “mostly or all Democrats.”
Lee did not answer NBC News’ questions about the posts Monday, and his office did not immediately respond to a request for comment about why they were taken down Tuesday.
Smith spoke to Lee on Monday and later told reporters she'd felt compelled to confront him about the posts.
“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 in the Capitol.
Smith's deputy chief of staff, Ed Shelleby, also lambasted the posts in an email to Lee's office shared with NBC News.
“Is this how your team measures success? Using the office of US Senator to post not just one but a series of jokes about an assassination—is that a successful day of work on Team Lee?" Shelleby wrote.
