Utah Republican senator faces backlash over post condemning Kirk’s killing

The official X account of Mike Lee, a Republican US senator, drew backlash after quickly condemning Wednesday’s killing of influential conservative activist Charlie Kirk in Utah – less than three months from when the politician initially responded to the shootings of two Minnesota Democratic lawmakers by boosting misinformation about that case.

A post from Lee, who joined the Senate in 2011, denounced Kirk’s murder as “a cowardly act of violence” while hailing the Turning Point USA executive director as an “American patriot” and “inspiration to countless young people”. His post also solicited prayers for the 31-year-old Kirk’s widow, Erika, and their children.

“The terrorists will not win,” Lee said shortly after Kirk’s death while speaking at an outdoors gathering on the campus of Utah Valley University had been confirmed. “Charlie will.”

While some of the platform’s users replied positively to the post, many others immediately alluded to how Lee focused on advancing conspiracy theories in the aftermath of the 14 June shootings that killed Minnesota’s house speaker Melissa Hortman and her husband, Mark, while wounding state senator John Hoffman – her fellow Democrat – as well as his wife, Yvette.

“This is what happens,” Lee wrote in an X post, “When Marxists don’t get their way.” Attached to the post was a picture of the suspect charged in the shooting, Vance Boelter, evidently wearing a latex face mask.

There was no evidence Boelter is a Marxist. Friends have told local media he was right-leaning. And while Minnesota voters don’t list party affiliation, Boelter was registered as a Republican in Oklahoma in 2004.

Separately, under another picture of Boelter, Lee wrote, “Nightmare on Waltz Street,” which appeared to be a reference to Tim Walz, Minnesota’s Democratic governor, who was Kamala Harris’s running mate in the 2024 presidential election won by Donald Trump.

Lee’s allusion to Walz came as conservative influencers misleadingly suggested an alliance between the governor and Boelter. Walz’s Democratic predecessor, Mark Dayton, appointed Boelter in 2016 to a 60-member voluntary advisory board. Boelter’s appointment was renewed in 2019 by Walz, who did not know him.

Tina Smith, a US Democratic senator from Minnesota, confronted Lee two days after the shootings in her state to tell him his posts were “brutal and cruel”, as CNN reported. “He should think about the implications of what he’s saying and doing.”

Lee didn’t say much to Smith and seemed surprised she had confronted him, as she put it. However, he subsequently deleted the posts in question.

After Wednesday’s killing, Lee told reporters that Kirk had recently texted him about being excited to visit Utah. Lee also exalted Kirk’s “boundless energy and great love for his country”.

Lee’s lament prompted one X user to rhetorically ask the senator “what has changed” because he had “expressed no sympathy” after the Minnesota lawmaker shootings.

“It seems you do know how to respond appropriately to tragedy,” another user replied to Lee. “I wish you would have … shown that same respect to Melissa Hortman and her husband, Mark.”

Yet another reply added: “I pray for Charlie Kirk’s family. They should not have to go through this. Nor did Melissa or Mark Hortman right??”

Smith posted about Kirk on Wednesday nearly an hour before Lee published his tribute to the staunch Trump ally.

“Horrific,” Smith wrote. “We all need to condemn these acts of political violence that are becoming far too commonplace in this country. We can’t continue like this.”