Chronically online MAGA Congressman Mike Lee should have just kept this one in the drafts.
The Utah senator, 54, shared a photo on X on Sunday afternoon of masked Mexican cartel members, calling out “leftists” in an attempted double standards gotcha moment regarding the idea that ICE agents should not wear masks to hide their identities.
“Cartel hitmen wear masks,” Lee, from his personal @BasedMikeLee account, wrote. “Leftists aren’t complaining.”
However, the senator was quick to delete his post after a few prominent Democrats responded, calling out how Lee’s argument unintentionally backfired.
“Yes. Cartel hitmen wear masks. That’s why ICE shouldn’t,” wrote Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer.
“Oh dear Mike,” wrote Connecticut Senator Chris Murphy. “I literally couldn’t make our argument better than you do. The bad guys wear masks. The good guys don’t.”
Hawaii Senator Brian Schatz replied, “Mike, I would like ICE to have the same standards as a local police department, not cartel hitmen.”
By Monday, Lee’s post was no longer available on the site. It’s unclear exactly when the Utah congressman deleted it, but the post was shared long enough to attract considerable backlash.
Lee’s posting of polarizing rhetoric on social media, only to delete it later, is nothing new.
In June 2025, after Democratic Minnesota state representative Melissa Hortman and her husband were assassinated in their home by Trump voter Vance Boelter, the GOP congressman tweeted and deleted some incredulous accusations blaming liberals for her death.
In one deleted post, Lee called the killing a “Nightmare on Waltz Street” in a misspelled effort to pin the blame on the state’s Democratic governor and staunch Trump administration adversary, Tim Walz.
In another deleted post, Lee said, “This is what happens… When Marxists don’t get their way.”
MS NOW host Lawrence O’Donnell said the senator was “not well” in the wake of his comments regarding the fatal shooting of Hortman and her husband.
“Mike Lee appears to be in an agonizing mental struggle with how to be a human being,” O’Donnell, 74, said on The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell last year.
“100 tweets a day is not healthy,” he continued, referring to the congressman’s avid social media usage as reported by the Salt Lake Tribune. “No United States senator actually doing the job of senator would have the time for 100 tweets a day, or even 10 tweets a day.”
Though Lee deleted his posts about Hortman’s assassination, the Utah senator never officially apologized for his comments.
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