MaddowBlog-Too many Republicans embrace conspiracy theories and misinfo after Minnesota shootings

[LetMyPeopleVote]

After the murders, Gov. Tim Walz called for "grace and compassion and vision and compromise and decency." Some on the right chose a different course.

After the murders in Minnesota, Tim Walz called for "grace and compassion and vision and compromise and decency." Some Republicans chose a far uglier course.

Take the increasingly unhinged Sen. Mike Lee, for example. www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddo...

— Steve Benen (@stevebenen.com) 2025-06-16T15:59:22.764Z

https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/maddowblog/republican-sen-mike-lee-peddles-misinformation-minnesota-shootings-sus-rcna213217

As is often the case, the conspiratorial ugliness quickly spread from the Republican base to Republican officials. Commenting on the murders, Sen. Bernie Moreno wrote online, “The degree to which the extreme left has become radical, violent, and intolerant is both stunning and terrifying.”

As HuffPost noted, one of Moreno’s far-right colleagues went even further.

Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) is facing criticism over social media posts mocking this weekend’s deadly shootings in Minnesota targeting Democratic lawmakers. While the suspected killer was still on the run ... Lee fired off a series of messages. ... One suggested the suspect, Vance Boelter, was into “Marxism,” despite reports that he was a religious conservative who had attended rallies in support of President Donald Trump.

In a separate online item, Lee showed a photo of the alleged shooter in a mask, alongside the senator’s message that read, “Nightmare on Waltz Street,” in apparent reference to Walz.

Lee then pinned one of his tweets — which read, “This is what happens when Marxists don’t get their way,” referring to the deadly shootings — to the top of his feed for special emphasis.

The obvious problem with garbage like this is that it’s factually wrong: Everything we now know so far about the alleged gunman suggests that he was an anti-abortion Trump voter, not a far-left Marxist......

But let’s not lose sight of the fact that Lee’s trajectory is emblematic of a larger and unsettling pattern.

In the not-too-distant past, the Utah Republican presented himself as something of a conservative intellectual. He withdrew his Trump endorsement ahead of Election Day 2016, and there was even some discussion that the senator wanted to be considered for the U.S. Supreme Court.

But that was before his descent. A couple of years ago, Lee started amplifying weird allegations from conspiracy theorist Alex Jones’ InfoWars website. Soon after, the GOP senator endorsed baseless Jan. 6 conspiracy theories. In the months that followed, he pushed AI-generated misinformation as if it were real.

Now, as Bloomberg News’ Steven Dennis noted, the Utahn has been reduced to “online trolling on assassinations.”

To appreciate the tragedy of Republican politics in the Trump era, look no further than the devolution of Mike Lee.

[Skittles]

1. it's a real test of character

if you're using the murders of two people to push nonsense, you just may be a real piece of SHIT

[LetMyPeopleVote]

2. Sen. Mike Lee refuses to answer Qs regarding his controversial post in the wake of the MN shootings

Link to tweet

[LetMyPeopleVote]

3. Mike Lee needs to resign

[Kaleva]

4. People like Sen Lee follow their base

Before Lee said anything, there were already numerous posts at FR claiming that the shooter was politically connected to Gov. Walz and was most likely a disgruntled leftist.

[LetMyPeopleVote]

5. Mike Lee deletes posts about Minnesota lawmaker shootings after blowback

Mike Lee needs to apologize or resign

Link to tweet

https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/5355192-mike-lee-posts-minnesota-shootings/

Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) on Tuesday deleted social media posts he made blaming the left for the fatal shooting of a Minnesota state legislator.

As of Tuesday afternoon, the posts that seemingly made light of the shootings that killed state Rep. Melissa Hortman (D) and her husband and wounded state Sen. John Hoffman (D) and his wife were gone from the Utah Republican’s @BasedMikeLee account.

One post from over the weekend had dubbed the killing the “Nightmare on Waltz Street,” an apparent reference to Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D), while the other said that: “This is what happens When Marxists don’t get their way.”

The move came after intense blowback from Democrats. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) publicly called on Lee to take down the posts and urged President Trump and Republicans to do the same, arguing that Lee might listen to them.

“I asked him to do it yesterday,” Schumer said at a morning press conference, calling the posts “disgusting.”

On Monday, Sen. Tina Smith (D-Minn.), a friend of Hortman’s, confronted Lee prior to a Senate GOP conference meeting about the party’s massive tax bill. She told reporters that she wanted him to hear from her directly “about how painful that was and how brutal that was to see that on what was just a horrible, brutal weekend.”

“I think too often in the Senate we talk to each other through one another and I wanted him to hear it from me directly,” she said.