Minnesota U.S. Senator Tina Smith (D) is sharing details of when she confronted Utah Senator Mike Lee (R) about his social media posts following the killings of former House Speaker Melissa Hortman and her husband Mark this past week. Another lawmaker, John Hoffman of Champlin, was shot as was his wife. They're currently in the hospital recovering from their injuries.
Smith talked to KSTP's Tom Hauser on the WCCO Radio Morning News Wednesday.
"He wasn't used to being kind of confronted and held accountable for what he does say on social media," Smith explained. "And I think that was a unique experience for him. But I think that is part of what you have to do, is to stand up to bullies like that, and that's what I was trying to do, not in an argumentative way, but in a kind of, 'here's the thing,' way."
Lee removed his posts on X as of Tuesday afternoon. They were posted to his personal X account, not his official Senate account.
Hauser asked Smith if Lee apologized for the posts after explaining to him the hurt she felt.
"He took the posts down, he didn't say anything to me about why he took the posts down," says Smith. "I don't have any feeling that he - I think he learned something from this at least to the extent he had to take those hateful things off social media. But there was no follow-up that was really about kind of taking accountability. As a mom, I learned a long time ago that if you're not expressing an understanding of what you did and what was wrong with what you did, then I'm not fully convinced he got the message."
So, did Lee apologize?
"No, he did not," said Smith.
Both of Minnesota's U.S. Senators, Smith and Amy Klobuchar, described Lee's posts as "beyond disgusting. One post was captioned "Nightmare on Waltz Street" and another claimed, "This is what happens when Marxists don't get their way." Lee posted those to his personal X account, not his official Senate account. Lee is very active, often posting far-right content on his personal X account. Both posts gained a lot of viral attention with "Waltz" a purposeful misspelling.
"This isn't funny, what happened here," says Klobuchar speaking about the deaths of Speaker Emerita Melissa Hortman and her husband Mark Hortman. "This was an incredible woman and her husband, her two kids on Fathers Day there was no Father's Day for them. They lost both their parents."
Smith also took time to reflect on her friend, Hortman, who served in the state legislature for 20 years.
"Sometimes when you are a leader, you feel as if you were faced with, you know, several choices, bad choices," Smith said. "The good choice that you want is just not within your reach in that moment. And the mark of a leader is how you make those decisions and how you strike that balance. And so, I think that was - that was very, very true of Melissa."