MAGA Senator, Mike Lee, Must Resign, Be Expelled, or Be Voted Out by the People
I believe what unfolded after the Minnesota shootings this past weekend was both shocking and shameful. As a lawyer, I know how rare and chilling it is for violence to strike elected officials in their homes. As a citizen, I am horrified. And as a journalist who cares deeply about our democracy and the well‑being of everyday Americans, I am disgusted by Senator Mike Lee’s response, or rather, his lack of humanity.
The tragedy is real. State Representative Melissa Hortman and her husband Mark were murdered in their home. Senator John Hoffman and his wife Yvette were seriously wounded. The shooter was a right-wing MAGA extremist fueled by hate, lies, and the dangerous rhetoric coming straight from the top.
The Hortman’s surviving children are now facing a nightmare no child should ever endure. Their family is left picking up pieces amid unspeakable loss. This is heart‑rending. This is personal. This is America on fire.
Lee’s Social Media Posts
I believe Senator Lee had a responsibility—no, an obligation—to stand up, condemn the violence in the starkest terms, and send comfort to grieving families. Instead he mocked the victims and cast blame in the most despicable way. He reposted an image of the killer alongside a callous jab: “This is what happens when Marxists don’t get their way.” He went on to ridicule Governor Walz with “Nightmare on Waltz Street.” He pinned this garbage to his profile, relishing the reaction, even as hospital doors closed on bullet‑wounded innocents.
This is pathetic. Political leadership in a crisis demands empathy, truth, and unity, not social media stunts and ideological slapshots. His conduct speaks volumes. This belief, that tragedy is just another opportunity to score partisan points, reflects a mindset that was cultivated at the very top, with Donald Trump. Trump’s dismissal of truth, his contempt for facts, his embrace of extremism, these are not outliers. They are the water Lee swims in.
This isn’t leadership. Whatever it is, it’s dangerous.
It normalizes cruelty. It erodes the trust we place in our institutions. It signals to radical extremists that politics = violence, and violence breeds more violence. And yes, it plays into the psychology of tribalism that gains power when we lose compassion for our fellow citizens.
In my opinion, Senator Lee’s behavior is not just disgraceful, it is disqualifying. A person who mocks murdered public servants while they lie bleeding on the floor is incapable of guiding the moral compass of this democracy. He should face consequences. Immediate and decisive.
Backing up my stance is the heartfelt confrontation from Senator Tina Smith. She stood in a Senate hallway this week and looked Lee in the eye. She told him what his posts did: how cruel, how hurtful, how destructive. She recalled her closeness to Melissa Hortman; she reminded him that she and her colleagues stood on a premeditated hit list of the accused.
In her letter to his staff she wrote that his words caused “additional pain on an unspeakably horrific weekend.” She asked him: Is this how your office gauges success—by posting jokes about an assassination? Where was any thought for the families who lost everything overnight? This is raw grief meeting cold cynicism head on.
Here’s Senator Smith’s letter in full:
Subject: A note from Sen. Smith's deputy chief
I knew Melissa Hortman. Many people in this office did. She was a longtime friend of Senator Smith’s, who had seen her hours before she was murdered. So you’ll forgive my candor as I speak through enormous grief.
It is important for your office to know how much additional pain you’ve caused on an unspeakably horrific weekend. I am not sure what compelled you or your boss to say any of those things, which, in addition to being unconscionable, also may very well be untrue.
But that is not the point. Why would you use the awesome power of a United States Senate Office to compound people’s grief? Is this how your team measures success? Using the office of US Senator to post not just one but a series of jokes about an assassination—is that a successful day of work on Team Lee? Did you come into the office Monday and feel proud of the work you did over the weekend?
Let’s recap Saturday so you fully understand what Minnesota was going through. Melissa Hortman and her husband were murdered. Sen. Hoffman and his wife were shot numerous times and remain hospitalized. By the grace of God it appears they will survive. Senators are discovered to be on a hit list of an armed man on the run—Senator Lee’s colleagues. And the decision of the office of Senator Mike Lee was not to publicly condemn the violence or to express condolences to her shattered children—it was to intimate that Melissa and Mark somehow deserved this? By making jokes? Did you have any consideration for the survivors in her family? For the Hoffmans in the hospital? For their families?
You exploited the murder of a lifetime public servant and her husband to post some sick burns about Democrats. Did you see this as an excellent opportunity to get likes and retweet? Have you absolutely no conscience? No decency?
I pray to God that none of you ever go through anything like this. I pray that Senator Lee and your office begin to see the people you work with in this building as colleagues and human beings. And I pray that if God forbid, you ever find yourselves having to deal with anything similar, you find yourselves on the receiving end of the kind of grace and compassion that Senator Mike Lee could not muster.
Lastly I suggest you take a few minutes today to read about Melissa Hortman and her husband Mark. They were remarkable people. Here’s a story in the St. Paul Pioneer press called “Melissa Hortman: Once a teenager with a job making burritos, she became a powerful MN lawmaker who trained service dogs.”
She was a force. And a human being. And I beg of you to exercise some restraint on social media as we continue to grieve.
Ed Shelleby
Office of Senator Tina Smith
It’s not enough that Lee quietly deleted his posts under pressure. Deleting is not owning. A real apology would be public, sincere, and immediate. A real apology would come with real accountability: retract your words, renounce the ideology behind them, and step aside if you can’t.
The stakes here go far beyond Utah or Minnesota. This is about whether our leaders protect the vulnerable or exploit them. Do we elevate compassion or weaponize tragedy for political gain? Right now, Mike Lee has failed his duty. He has failed all of us.
So here is what I am asking of everyday Americans: Do not shrug this off. Do not allow this behavior to become normalized in the Senate or in the White House. Write, call, organize, protest. Demand that Senator Lee apologize, retract, and resign. If he refuses, then the Utah GOP and Senate leadership must strip him of responsibility or push him out. Use these tools to reach out to his leadership.
Our democracy is fraying. Our young ones are watching. They must learn that public service is about service, not spectacle. It is about humility, not hubris. It is about love for people who differ, not rallying hate.
We cannot afford leaders who mock suffering. We cannot tolerate those who hide behind partisan masks when tragedy strikes. It starts at the top. Trump created the permission structure for this. Mike Lee is just one of its consequences.
Senator Mike Lee responded to a brutal, politically motivated attack on fellow lawmakers by mocking the victims and fueling partisan fire. He compounded the trauma of grieving families. This is beyond embarrassing, it is dangerous. Senator Tina Smith’s confrontation and letter exposed what everyday Americans already feel: this conduct is unacceptable, unfit, and un-American.
I recommend the following: Senator Lee should publicly apologize within 24 hours, retract his statements, and pledge to stop spreading this kind of toxic, divisive rhetoric. If he refuses, he must resign. If he won’t, then Senate leadership should take action to censure or expel him for conduct unbecoming of his office.
Utah’s Republican leadership must also step up and demand accountability. And if none of them have the courage to act, then voters must remember this moment and remove him at the ballot box. And voters across America should take this moment as a wake‑up call, our democracy depends on humanity above ideology.
Our children and grandchildren deserve better. Stand up and insist that leadership return to the values we claim to hold dear: truth, compassion, unity.
Mitch Jackson, Esq. | links
Thanks! Shared on LinkedIn. My representative is on LI and I share with him, although he never responds, I am sure someone gets my direct messages. He is a friend to Palantir.
Having known Rex Lee indirectly, the former solicitor general of the United States and first dean of the BYU Reuben Clark Law School, it's hard to believe Mike Lee is one of his offspring. It tends to sour my view of the entire Lee family. Mike Lee is one of Trump's most rabid followers. It is hard to imagine Rex Lee being found in the same zip code as Trump.