Sen. Tina Smith (D-Minn.) said Monday that she confronted Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) over his “cruel” social media posts appearing to mock the fatal shooting of a state Democratic lawmaker in Minnesota and the wounding of another.
“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, according to NBC News.
She added that Lee needed to hear from her “directly” and think about the “impact his actions had.”
“I don’t know whether Sen. Lee thought fully through what it was, you’d 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,” Smith said.
Early Saturday morning, Vance Boelter shot state Sen. John Hoffman (D) and his wife Yvette multiple times in their home in Champlin. They are both now awake after surgery. He then went to the home of former Speaker Melissa Hortman (D), where he shot and killed her and her husband Mark.
Boelter was caught by police Sunday evening. Officers say they found a list of other top state Democrats Boelter planned to target. Among the names were Gov. Tim Walz and Smith. The assassin is facing several charges, including first-degree murder.
In a series of posts on X, Lee joked about the attack, writing in one post with an image of the murder suspect, “Nightmare on Waltz Street,” attempting to connect Boelter to Walz, with his name misspelled.
He also tried to link Boelter to Democrats writing, “This is what happens…When Marxists don’t get their way.”
Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), told MSNBC on Monday that she also planned on talking to Lee and condemned his comments.
“What I’m going to tell him is: This isn’t funny,” she said.
“I’ll tell him about the law enforcement that did incredible work here,” Klobuchar continued. “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 are seeing in increasing violence and this evil man who did this, this is not a joke.”
