U.S. Senator Mike Lee (R-UT) pauses while reporters ask questions as he arrives for weekly party policy luncheons on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., U.S., June 17, 2025. REUTERS/Kent Nishimura
A CNN anchor didn't mince words in describing a Republican senator's comments following a spate of targeted shootings in Minnesota over the weekend that left a Democratic state lawmaker and her husband dead.
Vance Boelter, 57, disguised himself as a police officer and targeted the homes of state lawmakers, authorities said. Early Saturday, Minnesota Rep. Melissa Hortman and her husband were shot dead at their Brooklyn Park home. Shortly before that, authorities said Boelter targeted the home of state Sen. John Hoffman in Champlin, where both Hoffman and his wife, Yvette, were shot multiple times. Both survived.
Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) reacted to the shootings by sharing controversial thoughts on his personal X account. On Sunday, he wrote, “This is what happens when Marxists don’t get their way.” In a separate post, he attacked Gov. Tim Walz (D-MN), writing “Nightmare on Waltz Street,” alongside images of the suspect.
His comments sparked widespread outrage and condemnation, including from Sen. Tina Smith (D-MN), who said she confronted Lee over the posts. On Tuesday, she joined CNN anchor Phil Mattingly to discuss Lee's remarks.
And Mattingly gave the senator a piece of his mind before asking Smith about the posts.
"I can’t imagine the difficulty in just getting your head around the moment, particularly when you come back to Capitol Hill. And I actually don’t want to spend a ton of time on Senator Mike Lee. I’m usually fairly numb to the hyperbolic stuff from Capitol Hill, but it was so juvenile and ridiculous and embarrassing for an elected official to post what he posted," Mattingly railed.
He then asked Smith about her confrontation with Lee, who on Tuesday took down the posts.
"You confronted him, or you had a conversation with him. He has since deleted the posts on his personal social media. I wonder if you can explain to people kind of what you talked about with him, and whether or not you think that was the reason why," he said.
Smith replied that she, too, gets "a little numb to all of it."
"There’s just so much meanness out there, and I try to ignore it. But I found what he posted to just be so deeply hurtful and insulting to me, of course, but to Melissa’s family and to Minnesotans and to John and Yvette," Smith said.
She said she identified a moment where she wanted to talk to Lee face-to-face about his posts, noting she and her MAGA colleague "don’t have a deep relationship."
"We haven’t spent a lot of time together. We don’t serve on any committees together. So I went and found him last night. I wanted him to hear directly from me about the impact of his words," she said.
"I think often in this social media world, people aren’t thinking that their words actually come into contact with actual human beings on the other end of that Twitter feed. And I just wanted him to appreciate that and, I hope, feel some sense of responsibility for what he was saying," she added.
Watch the clip below or at this link.