Overview

• On June 18, Senator Mike Lee removed three personal X posts that mocked the June 14 killing of Minnesota Rep. Melissa Hortman and her husband.
• His deleted messages had blamed “Marxists” for the attack and used a misspelled pun of “Nightmare on Walz Street” to target Governor Tim Walz.
• Senator Tina Smith confronted Lee on June 16 and urged him to take accountability for the impact of his words on grieving communities.
• Comedian Jon Stewart devoted a segment on “The Daily Show” to rebuke Lee’s reaction as emblematic of indifference to domestic gun violence.
• Conservative commentators accused Lee of caving to liberal pressure for deleting the posts and questioned his resolve to stand by his statements.