Utah Sen. Mike Lee deletes social media posts about MN lawmaker killings following backlash

UPDATE 06/17/2025: Senator Mike Lee has since deleted the referenced posts.

SALT LAKE CITY (ABC4) — Utah’s senior Senator, Mike Lee took to X over the weekend, in now deleted posts, to comment on the killings of a Minnesota state senator and her husband and the shootings of two other state lawmakers, saying, “this is what happens when Marxists don’t get their way” accompanied by a picture of the suspect, Vance Boelter dressed in police gear as he reportedly

knocked on the victims’ door.

For a long time, Lee pinned that post to the top of his profile, and his comments are sparking some backlash.

“This is not a joke,” said Senator Amy Klobuchar, D-MN, who didn’t take kindly to Lee’s comments when asked about the post on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.”

“I have condemned what Mike Lee did here at home, and I will speak to him about this when I return (to Washington), and what I’m going to tell him is, you know, this isn’t funny what happened here,” she said.

In another post, Lee posted two pictures of Boelter with the caption, “nightmare on Waltz street.” Tim Waltz is the democratic governor of Minnesota and the former running mate of Vice President Kamala Harris in her failed 2024 presidential bid.

In several posts on Sunday, Lee appears to be referring to what he believed was the shooter’s political ideology after it was reported that Boelter volunteered for a position on a state workforce development board, first appointed by then-Gov. Mark Dayton, a Democrat, in 2016, and later by Democratic Gov. Tim Walz. Lee also made an earlier post suggesting that he believed the shooter was not MAGA, a term used to describe ardent Trump supporters.

However, the AP reports that Boelter’s friends and family say he had “deeply religious and politically conservative views” and voted for and went to campaign rallies for President Donald Trump.

Lee’s spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment at the time of publication on what Lee meant by the posts, which had been viewed collectively more than 18 million times and shared over 8-thousand times.

Other backlash to posts from his personal account came from Minnesota’s other senator, Tina Smith, D-MN, who reportedly confronted Lee in the halls of Congress Monday.

“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 afterward. “I don’t know whether Senator Lee thought fully through what it was — you 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.”

Lee is known for his often controversial and frequent posts from his personal X account, BasedMikeLee, and in recent days, he’s also posted about other political violence, both real and not real.

Sen. Lee on “No Kings” shooting in SLC

Posting about the shooting at the “No Kings” protest in Salt Lake City, Lee shared a post from a known conservative account, LibsofTikTok, with video of the shooting, writing, “make it stop, condemn all political violence.”

Around midday Sunday, Lee’s official Senate account also condemned weekend shootings.

“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 there, but not on his personal BasedMikeLee account.

When LibsofTikTok was critical of a North Carolina senator posting about the “No Kings” protest with an apparent doll head on a stick, Lee posted that the Democrat was calling for Trump’s beheading. He called that “undemocratic” and “on brand for today’s Democrats.”

But in another post Sunday evening, Lee appeared to suggest the left was responsible for other recent political violence, including the United CEO’s death, the death of Israeli ambassador staffers in Washington DC, and assassination attempts on the President, reposting an account that said, “the left has become a full-blown domestic terrorist organization” with the caption, “Marxism kills Americans must reject it—always.”

As recently as Monday, Lee appeared to suggest again that far left-leaning ideologies are responsible for political violence, reposting Elon Musk, who said, “the far left is murderously violent,” with the caption, “Fact check: true.”

Sen. Curtis on “No Kings” shooting in SLC

Meanwhile, Utah’s junior senator, John Curtis, condemned both the shootings in Salt Lake and Minnesota and called for rising above division.

On the Minnesota shooting, Curtis wrote on X, “I’m deeply disturbed by the targeted attacks on lawmakers in Minnesota. There is no justification—ever—for political violence.” Curtis added, “Moments like this demand that we rise above division and recommit to respectful discourse.”

On the Salt Lake shooting, Curtis reiterated that message.

“I strongly condemn the shooting that took place during a protest in Salt Lake City. Violence—no matter the setting—has no place in our public square,” he wrote.