WASHINGTON ― Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) on Tuesday deleted a collection of disgusting tweets he posted in response to a gunman assassinating Minnesota Democratic state Rep. Melissa Hortman and her husband.
Lee posted a number of tweets from his private account on Saturday, baselessly claiming that the person who went to the houses of 4 Minnesota state lawmakers with the intent to kill them has ties to the political left.
“This is what happens When Marxists don’t get their way,” the Utah Republican wrote in his first tweet, as particulars had been nonetheless rising on what had even occurred.
“Nightmare on Waltz Street,” Lee wrote in his second now-deleted tweet, an obvious and misspelled reference to Minnesota Democratic Gov. Tim Walz, who was Kamala Harris’ vice presidential working mate final 12 months.
His third now-deleted tweet referred to as Marxism a “deadly mental illness” in response to the Minnesota shootings.
Lee drew widespread condemnation for his posts, together with former Republican Nationwide Committee chairman Michael Steele telling him to “grow the hell up” and one Utah PAC calling on Lee to resign over his “sick” and “depraved” feedback.
It was initially unclear what drove Lee to delete his posts three days later. They had been nonetheless up as of early Tuesday afternoon, and a Lee spokesperson didn’t reply to a request for remark.
However the Utah Republican later instructed a Capitol Hill reporter that he deleted his posts after talking with Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.).
“It was important to her that I take it down,” Lee instructed journalist Matt Laslo. “We’re good friends. I took it down.”
Requested about their discuss, a Klobuchar spokesperson mentioned solely, “They had a good conversation this morning and she is glad he took them down.”
Lee didn’t delete a handful of different inflammatory social media posts that both implicitly or explicitly reference the Minnesota taking pictures.
“Fact check: TRUE,” he posted Monday on his private X account, in response to an Elon Musk tweet falsely claiming, “The far left is murderously violent.”
“Marxism kills,” Lee mentioned in one other Monday tweet, in response to somebody falsely claiming “the left … kills a MN state rep and her husband and injures a Senator and his wife.”
On Saturday, the identical day the lawmaker and her husband had been assassinated at dwelling, Lee had this to say in response to somebody posting in regards to the FBI reviewing the gunman’s cellphone information: “My guess: He’s not MAGA.”
Sen. Tina Smith (D-Minn.) pulled Lee out of a Senate Republican-only assembly on Monday night time to speak to him about how “cruel” and “hurtful” his feedback had been. Past the horror of the scenario, Smith was additionally associates with Hortman.
She instructed HuffPost earlier Tuesday, when Lee’s posts had been nonetheless up, that the Utah Republican was “sort of shocked” when she pulled him apart to handle his posts.
“The point here is that there are consequences to the things that you do in the social media world, as a U.S. senator, and he has a big megaphone,” Smith mentioned. “He’s choosing to use it to spread misinformation and to hurt people.”
Minnesota authorities captured the suspect, Vance Boelter, 57, on Sunday night time. They mentioned he had a “hit list” of 45 elected officers, all of whom had been Democrats.
Smith was amongst these on the checklist.
Requested Tuesday if Lee apologized to her for his posts once they spoke, Smith replied, “Not really.”
Kayla Bartkowski through Getty Photographs
Lee isn’t the one Republican senator who’s been fanning inflammatory rhetoric within the aftermath of the Minnesota shootings.
In a social media submit that’s nonetheless up, Sen. Bernie Moreno (R-Ohio) baselessly claims the Minnesota gunman was a radical leftist.
“The degree to which the extreme left has become radical, violent, and intolerant is both stunning and terrifying,” Moreno wrote Saturday, simply hours after the assassinations had taken place.
The Ohio Republican’s tweet was in response to somebody sharing an image of anti-Trump “No Kings” indicators allegedly discovered within the again seat of the gunman’s automotive. However the gunman’s motive stays unknown. And whereas he was concentrating on Democratic lawmakers, his political affiliation can also be unknown and irrelevant.
Requested Tuesday about Lee’s tweets, Moreno instantly grew to become belligerent.
“For every Mike Lee comment that you just pointed out, there’s 7,000 times the Democrats have called Trump ‘Hitler,’ ‘a fascist,’ ‘an authoritarian,’” he instructed HuffPost. “If you had the same level of energy about condemning those, then I would give you a credible answer.”
Requested if that meant he was snug with Lee’s posts, Moreno lashed out on the press usually.
“You have no credibility because you turned a blind eye,” he charged, and tried to alter the topic to speak about somebody in North Carolina.
After some back-and-forth, with Moreno repeatedly refusing to weigh in on Lee’s posts, HuffPost instructed the senator it appeared like he simply didn’t wish to reply the query.
“I answered the question for you,” he sniped, earlier than shifting on to speak to different reporters. (He didn’t reply the query.)
