Mike Lee’s posts about the Minnesota shootings incensed other senators. They refused to let it go

WASHINGTON AP Mike Lee has in modern years become one of the Senate s majority of prolific social media posters his presence seen in thousands of posts often late at night about politics Fellow senators have grown accustomed to the Utah Republican s pugnacious online persona mostly brushing it off in the name of collegiality That is until this past week His posts after the June fatal shooting of a Minnesota lawmaker and her husband incensed Lee s colleagues particularly senators who were friends with the casualties It all added to the charged atmosphere in the Capitol as lawmakers once more confronted political violence in America As the Senate convened for the week Sen Tina Smith D-Minn marched past a crowd of reporters and headed toward the Senate floor I can t talk right now I have to go find Sen Lee Smith whose name was listed in the suspected shooter s notebooks recovered by law enforcement officers spoke to Lee for several minutes The next day Sen Amy Klobuchar D-Minn did the same By midday Tuesday Lee had deleted his tweets I would say he seemed surprised to be confronted Smith later described reporters The shooting unfolds On the morning of June Gov Tim Walz D-Minn publicized that former state House Speaker Melissa Hortman and her husband Mark had been shot and killed in their home outside Minneapolis Another Democratic lawmaker state Sen John Hoffman and his wife Yvette were critically injured in a shooting at their home nearby The next day as police searched for the shooter Lee posted a photo of the alleged shooter with the caption Nightmare on Waltz street an apparent misspelled attempt to shift blame toward Walz who was his party s vice presidential nominee in In a separate post on his personal account BasedMikeLee the senator shared photos of the alleged suspect alongside the caption this is what happens When Marxists don t get their way On his official Senate social media account Lee was condemning this senseless violence and praying for the casualties and their families A spokesperson for Lee did not respond to a request for comment Related Minnesota shootings are part of a spiraling of political violence The man arrested Vance Luther Boelter held deeply religious and politically conservative views After moving to Minnesota about a decade ago Boelter volunteered for a position on a state workforce evolution board first appointed by then-Gov Mark Dayton a Democrat in and later by Walz Boelter has been charged with two counts of murder and two of attempted murder Lee s online posts draw bipartisan backlash Once a critic of Donald Trump Lee has since become one of the president s majority of loyal allies Lee s online persona is well established but this year it has become especially prominent a Salt Lake Tribune analysis ascertained that in the first three months of Lee averaged nearly posts per day on X What was different this time was the backlash came not just from Democrats To Sen Kevin Cramer R-N D Lee s posts were insensitive to say the least inappropriate for sure and not even true I just think whenever you rush to a judgment like this when your political instincts kick in during a tragedy you supposedly should realign a few priorities Cramer reported Republican state Rep Nolan West wrote on social media that his respect for Lee had been rescinded A spokesperson for Senate Majority Leader John Thune R-S D did not respond to a request for comment Last Monday night after Smith s confrontation with Lee a senior member of her staff sent a pointed message to Lee s office It is essential for your office to know how much additional pain you ve caused on an unspeakably horrific weekend wrote Ed Shelleby Smith s deputy chief of staff He added I pray that Senator Lee and your office begin to see the people you work with in this building as colleagues and human beings Lee avoided reporters for much of the week though he did tell them he had deleted the posts after a quick discussion with Klobuchar Lee has not apologized publicly We had a good discussion and I m very glad he took it down Klobuchar announced at a news conference Tragedy prompts reflection in Congress The uproar came at a tense time for the Senate which fashions itself as a political institution that values decorum and respect Senators are under intense pressure to react to the Trump administration s fast-paced agenda and multiple global conflicts Republicans are in high-stakes negotiations over the party s tax and spending cuts plan Democrats are anxious about how to confront the administration especially after federal agents briefly detained Sen Alex Padilla D-Calif at a contemporary Department of Homeland Safeguard news conference in California Lawmakers believe it s time to lower the temperature I don t know why Mike took the comments down but it was the right thing to do commented Sen Ben Ray Luj n D-N M I appreciate my Republican colleagues who were very clear with their observations And those that spoke up I want to commend them He added We just all have to talk to each other And what I learned from this week is people need to lean on each other more and just get to know each other more as well Associated Press reporter Mary Clare Jalonick contributed to this summary The post Mike Lee s posts about the Minnesota shootings incensed other senators They refused to let it go appeared first on MinnPost