Sen. Tina Smith says she confronted Sen. Mike Lee about his 'cruel' social media posts on the Minnesota shootings
Sen. Tina Smith, D-Minn., said Monday that she confronted Republican Sen. Mike Lee of Utah over his social media posts about the suspect in shootings that took the life of a Minnesota lawmaker and her husband.
Smith said she confronted Lee after his 'cruel' posts, in which he included a photo of the suspected gunman and wrote, 'this is what happens When Marxists don't get their way.'
'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.
She added that Lee needed to hear from her 'directly' and think about the 'impact his actions had.'
'I don't know whether Senator Lee thought fully through what it was, you'd 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,' Smith said.
A gunman fatally shot state Rep. Melissa Hortman and her husband Mark, and injured state Sen. John Hoffman and his wife Yvette Hoffman. Vance Boelter, the suspect wanted in the shootings, was arrested Sunday night.
Authorities have described the shooting as a 'politically motivated assassination.'
Lee's posts sparked condemnation from other Democrats as well, including Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Herald Scotland
2 hours ago
- The Herald Scotland
What parts of RFK Jr.'s MAHA agenda are resonating? See poll results
Public opinion of Kennedy Jr. is also divided: 51% of the respondents said it was favorable and 48% picked unfavorable for the former 2024 presidential candidate who ran as a Democrat and then as an independent before dropping out to endorse Trump. More: RFK Jr. suspends campaign; endorses former President Trump A majority of Democrats (82%) say their opinion of Kennedy is either strongly "unfavorable" or "somewhat unfavorable," while 84% Republicans view Kennedy as either "strongly favorable" or "somewhat favorable." Among independents, 52% have a favorable view of Kennedy, the son of former Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy and the nephew of former President John F. Kennedy. The poll was conducted online from May 30-June 10 among a national sample of 19,410 adults age 18 and up. The margin of error is plus or minus 2.1 percentage points. Among the poll participants, 37% described themselves as Democrats, 37% as Republicans and 26% as "Independent or something else." Asked about the use of vaccines to prevent diseases, 69% of Republicans, 93% of Democrats and 76% of independents responded to the NBC poll that they support immunizations to protect public health. Kennedy has repeatedly called into question the safety and efficacy of vaccines. Earlier this month, he fired the entire committee that advises the federal government on vaccine safety, implying that it was not conducting "adequate safety trials" before recommending new vaccines to children. Kennedy later appointed to the panel a physician criticized for spreading COVID-19 misinformation and conspiracy theories. Vaccine experts widely dispute Kennedy's characterizations. More: RFK Jr.'s MAHA movement is coming to a state near you NBC's pollsters also asked who deserved the most blame for America's chronic health problems, including obesity and heart disease. A majority at 35% blamed the food industry, followed closely by the "choices of individuals" at 32%. Kennedy has been a big critic of Big Food and Big Pharma, blaming them for Americans' high rates of chronic ailments like Type 2 Diabetes and accusing the industries of profiting by keeping Americans sick. In April, he announced that eight artificial dyes will be eliminated from medications and the nation's food supply by the end of 2026, including those found in candy, ice cream, soft drinks and jams. Only 6% of respondents blamed environmental toxins - which Kennedy has blamed a host of ailments on - as a reason for chronic diseases. The MAHA Commission report released by Kennedy last month identifies various toxins and environmental factors as potential contributors to chronic disease in American children. He has also announced a series of studies aimed at studying possible environment causes behind autism, which scientists continue to push back on. Last month, the right-leaning think tank Foundation for Government Accountability released a poll showing a similar pattern to NBC's results. It found more than 80% of Democrats and Republicans said they were in support of a U.S. prohibition on certain dyes and chemicals from foods in the same way they were banned in some European countries. Swapna Venugopal Ramaswamy is a White House Correspondent for USA TODAY. You can follow her on X @SwapnaVenugopal
The Herald Scotland
2 hours ago
- The Herald Scotland
Tax tweaks, Medicaid cuts: What's in the Senate tax bill
Setting up a showdown with the Republican-led House, which adopted its own version of Trump's so-called "big beautiful bill" in late May, the Senate Finance Committee would not increase the federal deduction for state and local taxes from $10,000 to $40,000 for people earning less than $500,000 per year. Senate Republicans plan to continue to negotiate changes to the so-called SALT tax deduction. The proposal is the culmination of weeks of negotiations among Senate Republicans on the GOP bill that would be Trump's biggest legislative accomplishment in his second term thus far. Senators have been pushing to complete work on the package by July 4, before reconciling changes with the House and passing the bill before August. They have been walking a fine line since the House passed their version three weeks ago: Several senators have demanded deeper spending cuts to the bill, as the House's version is expected to add $2.4 trillion to the deficit over the next 10 years, while others are concerned that potential cuts to Medicaid and green energy tax credits go too far. Meanwhile, any changes they make could disrupt the delicate balance in the House, where Republicans have only a three-vote margin. The House-passed version of the bill would extend Trump's 2017 income tax cuts and implement new temporary tax breaks for tips and overtime. It would create new federally-seeded savings account for children and give seniors an additional tax credit. It would pour billions of dollars into the administration's deportation plans and on defense. And it would add new restrictions to benefit programs like Medicaid and food stamps in an effort to balance out the cost of the sweeping bill, including new Medicaid work requirements for able-bodied adults without children. The House's Medicaid changes are expected to save at least $625 billion and cause 7.6 million Americans to lose their health insurance over the next 10 years, according to initial estimates by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office. A CBO estimate released on June 12 showed that the bill would decrease resources for low-income households while boosting resources for middle- and high-income households. Deeper Medicaid cuts As in the House, the Senate has fiscal conservatives who are concerned that the bill will add to the federal deficit and others who have problems with the potential impact on Medicaid health coverage. Appeasing one camp is difficult to do without inflaming the frustrations of the other, forcing Republican leaders to strike a balance to get the votes they need, as no Democrats are expected to support the proposal. Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Missouri, and Sen. Jim Justice, R-West Virginia, have been critical of a provision in the bill that limits states from raising money to pay for their part of Medicaid spending through health-care-related taxes known as "provider taxes." But instead of rolling back the House's proposal, Senate lawmakers made deeper cuts to Medicaid through changes to the provider tax. They proposed gradually reducing the threshold by which states can guarantee providers will be paid back for contributing to the state's Medicaid funding, which boosts the amount the federal government matches. Right now, states can guarantee reimbursement if tax revenues make up 6% or less of revenues from treating patients. That limit would be gradually reduced to 3.5%. No taxes on tips, overtime A handful of Trump's key campaign promises would be scaled back under the Senate's version of the bill as opposed to the House's in order to rein in the cost of the package. The Senate's proposal would create a new tax deduction on overtime of up to $12,500 for an individual who makes $150,000 or less in a year. It would also create a tax deduction on tipped wages of up to $25,000 for people who make $150,000 or less. In the House's version, tax breaks for overtime and tips would have no limit and would apply to people who make $160,000 or less. SALT math The Senate had made it clear they planned to make some changes to a hotly-contested provision that would benefit people who live in high-tax states: State and local tax deductions, known as SALT. A handful of Republican lawmakers in the House who represent districts in Democratic-controlled states such as New York, New Jersey and California pushed to raise the $10,000 cap on SALT deductions to $40,000 for people earning less than $500,000 per year. But unlike in the House, there are no Republican senators who represent high-tax states that could benefit from the deduction. Adding a cap to the deduction, which Republicans approved during Trump's first presidency, "was one of the best reforms that we had in the bill," said Senate Majority Leader John Thune. The package, as released on June 16, would eliminate that deal and keep the existing $10,000 cap. Some of those GOP lawmakers in the House have already said they won't vote for the bill in the House if their deal on SALT is abandoned. Changing the deal "would be like digging up safely buried radioactive waste - reckless, destabilizing and sure to contaminate everything around it," Rep. Nick Lalota, R-New York, told reporters on June 4.
Daily Mirror
5 hours ago
- Daily Mirror
Donald Trump's garbled remarks to reporters fail to address G7 summit U-turn
Donald Trump, US President, has departed the G7 summit a day early, after declaring Tehran should be evacuated "immediately" amid the conflict between Iran and Israel Donald Trump spoke to reporters for the first time following his shock decision to leave the G7 summit early. Yet the US President failed to offer journalists any clear explanation about what he intended to do upon arriving at the US ahead of schedule. Karoline Leavitt, White House Press Secretary, had said the move to dodge the rest of the meeting was "because of what's going on in the Middle East." When interviewed in Banff, Canada, on Monday evening (local time), Mr Trump insisted it was "very important" he returned to the White House. However, he could offer nothing further to explain the mystery around his sudden move, a consequence of which is that he will miss an encounter with Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky. Footage played on Fox News shows Mr Trump stood awkwardly alongside Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney. The Republican President says: "I have to back, it's very important... I want to just thank our great host," before turning to face Mr Carney. He adds: "You've done a fantastic job, thank you." Facing the journalists, Mr Trump continues: "You probably see what I see, and I have to be back as soon as I can. I will have dinner with these wonderful leaders and then I get on the plane, as I have to be back early." Despite repeating "I have to be back", Mr Trump doesn't detail why in the short clip, shared on Twitter or X, as it is now known. At the end of the video, one reporter is heard asking the politician: "Is there a reason, Mr President?" The clip ends but it is thought Mr Trump gave no direct response to this. Midway through the sequence, Mr Trump, 79, insists "we got a lot done" before looking either side of him at his fellow world leaders. He eventually reminds reporters he and Keir Starmer signed a trade deal as he glances at our Prime Minister. The camera zooms out to include Mr Starmer in the frame. "We got a lot done. Didn't we get a lot done? In fact, with the UK, we signed a big trade deal today and we are working on others, but we had just a really great relationship with everybody and it's really nice. I wish I could stay for tomorrow but they understand. This is big stuff," the Republican President adds in the clip. He had earlier on Monday declared Tehran, Iran's capital, should be evacuated "immediately." The former businessman warned Tehran needs to curb its nuclear programme before it's 'too late.'
