Jon Stewart joined Senator Tina Smith in tearing into MAGA Republican Mike Lee over his response to the shootings in Minnesota this weekend, which left state Rep. Melissa Hortman and her husband dead and state Sen. John Hoffman and his wife in the hospital.
Suspect Vance Boelter was arrested on Sunday and charged with murder after the largest manhunt in Minnesota history. Still, the tragedy was mocked by Utah GOP Senator Lee, who posted pictures of the gunman on X with the captions, “This is what happens when Marxists don’t get their way” and “Nightmare on Waltz Street,” the latter a misspelled partisan attack on Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz.
Covering the horrific case on Comedy Central’s The Daily Show on Monday evening, Stewart recounted a meeting with Lee in 2019 when he campaigned for the permanent reauthorization of the September 11th Victim Compensation Fund Act.
Stewart said Lee had responded callously to a cop’s story about being inside one of the Twin Towers when it collapsed, reporting that Lee had just smiled and said, “Hah, I bet you’ve got a lot of stories,” prompting the group to say to one another after exiting his office: “What the f*** is wrong with that guy?”
The comedian went on to compare Lee’s impassioned reaction to the murder of Laken Riley in February 2024 with his mocking indifference to the assassination of Hortman.
“I truly want to know why, in his mind, one death, at the hands of an immigrant, is worth $150bn of border security, the militarization of American cities, well, just the blue cities… But I want to know why those deaths in Minnesota are worth only a night of edgelord s***posting,” Stewart said.
“No billions for mental health, no stopping illegal weapons trafficking, no nothing. We should ask him why. I bet he’s got some stories to tell.”
Earlier, Sen. Smith had confronted Sen. Lee in person on Capitol Hill about the insensitivity of his posts.
She subsequently told CNN’s Kaitlan Collins that she had told him: “You need to take responsibility and accountability for what you are saying and doing out there in the social media world. I wanted him to hear that from me directly.
“I think that that is important, that he understands again the consequence, the impact, that his words have on people who are going through so much pain and trauma. This is not a joke.
“And he needs to understand over 7m people dialled into his message on social media. He has a powerful platform. He should not be using it to spread misinformation and to basically make a joke of the murder of public servants.”
Smith said Lee did not know how to react to her and thought he was a person unaccustomed to being confronted or challenged.
In another interview with streamer Brian Tyler Cohen, Smith said she had had to “chase after him a bit” to initiate the conversation and accused Lee of pretending to be on the phone to avoid her.
A member of Smith’s staff also attacked Lee in an email to his top aides, obtained by Politico, in which they called his posts “unconscionable.”
“It is important for your office to know much additional pain you’ve caused on an unspeakably horrific weekend,” the official wrote.
“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?” they asked.
While the offending posts, which were still up at the time of writing, appeared on Sen. Lee’s personal account @BasedMikeLee, he did use his official account @SenMikeLee to condemn Saturday’s atrocity.
“These hateful attacks have no place in Utah, Minnesota, or anywhere in America,” he wrote. “Please join me in condemning this senseless violence, and praying for the victims and their families.”
