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GOP senator slammed for disgusting tweets about Minnesota shooting [1]
['Daily Kos Staff']
Date: 2025-06-16
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.
The booking photo, provided by the Hennepin County Sheriff's Office, of alleged murderer Vance Boelter in Green Isle, Minnesota, on June 16.
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.
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.
“Today we speak with one voice to express our outrage, grief, and condemnation of this horrible attack on public servants,” the entire Minnesota congressional delegation wrote in a joint bipartisan statement. “There is no place in our democracy for politically-motivated violence.”
Criticism of Lee’s response was swift.
"When there’s political violence in western democracies it’s traditionally treated as a somber event for everyone to come together. That’s disappeared. The victims were gunned down just over a day ago and a US Senator is mocking the event and hinting at a deranged conspiracy," independent journalist Lee Fang wrote in a post on X.
Related | Right-wing media manufactures false connections in Minnesota shooting
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