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Minnesota Democratic Sen. Tina Smith confronted Utah Republican Sen. Mike Lee on Monday over his disgusting tweets. Lee’s tweets spread disinformation and trivialized the assassination of a Minnesota Democratic lawmaker and her husband, as well as the shooting of a second Minnesota Democratic lawmaker and his wife, and were beyond the pale.
“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 after the confrontation.
Related | GOP senator slammed for disgusting tweets about Minnesota shooting
She added, “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.”
Minnesota Sen. Tina SmithLee on Sunday tweeted a horrifying image of Vance Boelter, the alleged assassin who shot and killed Democratic state Rep. Melissa Hortman and her husband, and shot Minnesota Democratic state Sen. John Hoffman, and his wife, Yvette. Alongside the image of Boelter—who was dressed in a rubber mask and disguised as a police officer—Lee included the text "Nightmare on Waltz Street"—a misspelled reference to Minnesota Democratic Gov. Tim Walz, who was also on Boelter’s kill list.
Lee had also tweeted the same image of Boelter with the text, "This is what happens/When Marxists don’t get their way"—an effort to spread disinformation about Boelter’s political ideology, falsely claiming he was a Democrat when Boelter’s longtime friend and roommate said he was a Donald Trump supporter.
Aside from Smith, other Democrats have also called Lee out for his repugnant tweets.
“This is a disgraceful and heinous comment, beneath the dignity of a United States Senator. Completely unhinged, abhorrent, and divorced from reality. You need to take this down, Senator Lee, and apologize publicly at minimum,” Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA) said in a post on X.
One of Smith's staffers also sent Lee's staff an email, dressing them down for ratcheting up the rhetoric following the assassination, rather than being normal human beings and showing compassion.
"You exploited the murder of a lifetime public servant and her husband to post some sick burns about Democrats. Did you see this as an excellent opportunity to get likes and retweet? Have you absolutely no conscience? No decency?" Ed Shelleby, Smith's deputy chief of staff, wrote. "I pray to God that none of you ever go through anything like this. I pray that Senator Lee and your office begin to see the people you work with in this building as colleagues and human beings. And I pray that 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 Senator Mike Lee could not muster."
Lee, however, has yet to comment on his posts—let alone apologize.
Aside from Smith, reporters on Capitol Hill tried to ask Lee whether he regretted his despicable tweets. But like the coward he is, he ran away and had a staff member shield him from the reporters asking questions rather than take any responsibility for his deranged social media posts.
But Lee isn't the only heartless sociopath in the Republican Party. Trump has also barely spoken about the horrific assassination, which had it not been for a successful manhunt could have led even more Democratic officials to be murdered as the alleged shooter had a long list of lawmakers he was targeting.
And on Monday, Trump said he wouldn't be calling Minnesota Democratic Gov. Tim Walz to express his sympathies or offer support.
“I think the governor of Minnesota is so whacked out. I’m not calling. Why would I call him?" Trump told reporters on Air Force One. "I could call and say, ‘Hi, how you doing?’ The guy doesn’t have a clue.”
Shameful.
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