A Senate colleague confronted Energy and Natural Resources Chair Mike Lee of Utah over his social media post that blamed this weekend’s Minnesota shootings that killed a former Democratic legislative leader on “Marxists.”
Democratic Sen. Tina Smith, a friend of murdered state Rep. Melissa Hortman, spoke to the Utah Republican in a hallway off the Senate floor during evening votes.
“I wanted him to know how much pain that caused me and the other people in my state, and I think around the country, who think that this was a brutal attack,” Smith told reporters afterward.
“I don’t know whether Sen. Lee thought fully through what it was — you have to ask him — but I needed him to hear from me directly what impact I think his cruel statement had on me, his colleague,” she said.
