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White House chief of staff Susie Wiles is encouraging Congress to get the “big, beautiful bill” to President Donald Trump’s desk by July 4.

Wiles told GOP senators at a closed-door lunch that the Independence Day deadline still holds as far as Trump is concerned, according to a person granted anonymity to describe the private meeting. Her comments come as Senate GOP leaders move to put the bill on the floor by the middle of next week.

White House officials have been adamant about sticking to the July 4 target, even as GOP lawmakers cast doubt on whether it will be possible to move that fast on Capitol Hill.

Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.) said Wiles encouraged senators to get it through their chamber “as soon as possible.” Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.), who organized the lunch, declined to discuss specifics but hinted that Wiles embraced the the July 4 deadline.

“Everybody I talked to in the White House would like to see a bill by July 4,” he said, adding that he believes the deadline is doable.

Speaker Mike Johnson has indicated he will cancel a planned House recess in order to get the bill through the other chamber and to Trump’s desk by the holiday deadline. But there remain profound issues for leaders to bridge — both among GOP senators and between Republicans in the two chambers.

Lisa Kashinsky contributed to this report.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune said Wednesday the chamber will “hopefully” take up the GOP’s party-line megabill starting in the middle of next week.

GOP leaders have been tentatively planning for an initial procedural vote as soon as next Wednesday, setting up a final vote over the weekend — a timeline previously reported by POLITICO.

Senate Republicans are still negotiating with their members behind the scenes and continue to meet with the parliamentarian, who needs to bless the bill as compliant with the chamber’s rules surrounding the straight-majority budget reconciliation process. Thune said he expected talks with the parliamentarian to continue into the weekend, and potentially into early next week, but added, “I think we’re making good headway.”

Democrats are refusing to participate in the first congressional hearing focusing on allegations of former President Joe Biden’s mental decline while in the White House.

Only Sens. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) and Peter Welch (D-Vt.) attended the kickoff of the Senate Judiciary Committee meeting Wednesday morning, with Durbin, the ranking member, immediately walking out after calling the event a distraction from the real issues in the panel’s purview — such as President Donald Trump’s deployment of the military to respond to immigration protests in Los Angeles.

Durbin also accused Republicans on the panel of being “asleep at the wheel,” regarding their responsibilities of oversight of the current administration.

“The Republican majority on this committee has not held a single oversight hearing despite numerous critical challenges facing the nation that are under our jurisdiction,” Durbin said, naming as recent examples the past weekend’s assassination of a state lawmaker in Minnesota and last week’s handcuffing of Sen. Alex Padilla at a DHS press conference. Padilla, a California Democrat, is a member of the Judiciary Committee.

“Apparently, armchair diagnosing former President Biden is more important than the issues of grave concern, which I have mentioned,” Durbin said.

Welch left the hearing room after declaring that the proceedings had no benefit for his constituents.

The hearing, which includes testimony from former Trump administration officials like ex-press secretary Sean Spicer, underscores how Republicans in Congress are intent to continue the drumbeat of attacks on the former president, even after he has largely exited public life. Across the Capitol, House Oversight Chair James Comer has launched his own probe into Biden whether Biden was mentally fit to lead the nation’s highest office, with interviews lined up with a number of senior Biden White House officials to gather evidence.

Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), who is co-chairing the hearing alongside Sen. Eric Schmitt (R-Mo.), accused those in Biden’s inner circle of letting “their self-interest and their fear of another Trump term justify an attempt to put an at-times addled old man in the Oval Office for four more years.” He shared clips from the 2024 debate between President Donald Trump and Biden, which kicked off the widespread calls for Biden to end his bid for reelection.

Cornyn is also facing a tough primary battle in Texas, where he is up for reelection in 2026. State Attorney General Ken Paxton has already announced his intention to unseat Cornyn, and the race is likely to serve as a test of the candidates’ MAGA credentials.

The 91-year-old Judiciary panel chair, Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa, opened the hearing by decrying what he called a “rudderless” former administration.

Congressional lawmakers are once again grappling with the reality of persistent and escalating political violence — and facing a dilemma about whether to pour more tax dollars into their own protection.

On the Capitol grounds, they’re surrounded by layers of security and a police force that was dramatically overhauled after the riots of Jan. 6, 2021. But back home in their districts, members of the House and Senate are feeling increasingly exposed following the shootings in Minnesota that killed a state representative and her husband; wounded a state senator and his wife; and revealed a list of other elected officials who might have been harmed had the suspect not first been apprehended.

It all has predictably rattled both Democrats and Republicans in Washington, many of whom responded by making new demands for more money and resources for security.

A bipartisan Senate duo of Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) and Dave McCormick (R-Pa.) made the case for additional lawmaker security funding at a Tuesday morning briefing with the Senate Sergeant-at-Arms and U.S. Capitol Police, according to Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer.

Across the Capitol, House Democrats held a briefing Tuesday afternoon to hear from law enforcement officials and get walked through available resources, according to three people familiar with the discussion. And Republican Rep. Tim Burchett of Tennessee sent a letter to the House Administration Committee calling for an expansion of what House members are allowed to spend on security expenses, including on “around the clock” security personnel instead of only during “official conduct and representational duties” — restrictions he called “inadequate.”

Recent events have also prompted fresh questions about what can be done and how much money is actually necessary to alleviate the risks that come with being a public figure. The answer is enormously complicated.

Ultimately, lawmakers are divided over welcoming — and paying for — the kinds of additional safety precautions that would inevitably restrict their freedom of movement, limit their interactions with regular people and intrude on their family life. Unlike the senior most leaders who have 24/7 security details, rank-and-file members are typically left to their own devices unless they are deemed to be under active threat by Capitol Police.

“I feel like the law enforcement — they’re doing their best to protect us. I try to make good, common-sense decisions,” Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said after his chamber’s Tuesday morning security briefing. “But you just can’t get locked down. You just got to press on.”

“I don’t want to have security on me. I’m a very private person. I like to go outside and be by myself,” added Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.), who chairs the Senate appropriations subcommittee that funds Capitol Police.

Consider two programs the House and Senate Sergeants-at-Arms and the Capitol Police have spent years trying to promote to members: one for security updates at lawmakers’ primary residences and another to coordinate local and Capitol Police resources for in-district events.

So far, Capitol Police have mutual aid agreements with more than 100 state and local police departments around the country to do this type of work, according to former chief Thomas Manger, who departed last month. But that’s still just a fraction of what would be needed for every member to have access to seamless security coverage in their home state or district, with local departments reimbursed by the agency.

More than half of all House lawmakers last year took advantage of the home security program, but those who didn’t enroll cited either a lack of interest or a feeling that the paperwork and approval process were too burdensome, according to two people familiar with the administration of the initiative, granted anonymity to speak candidly about it. That left hundreds of thousands of dollars in the House Sergeants-at-Arms budget unspent.

The extent to which recent events might be changing lawmakers’ thinking will be tested next week, when the House Legislative Branch appropriations subcommittee is scheduled to meet to consider its bill to fund the operations of Capitol Hill. In a spending cycle where Republicans in both chambers are looking for deep cuts, lawmakers will have to decide if their own security is worthy of further investment — and what that security might look like.

Manger, in his final budget proposal to House and Senate appropriators, asked for an allocation of $967.8 million for fiscal 2026, a 22 percent boost over the current funding level which was set in fiscal 2024. The Capitol Police budget has already increased more than 70 percent since Jan. 6. And with some lawmakers calling this week for even more resources for member security, the budget for the relatively small force could top $1 billion for the first time this year or next.

Top House Democrats, for instance, have asked Speaker Mike Johnson to boost funding for security through what’s known as the Member Representation Allowance, which each House member receives to fund basic office expenses including payroll. Increasing the MRA would allow lawmakers to increase security capabilities without taking away money that pays staff salaries.

Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) said he supports additional resources for member security but stressed that it must be implemented in a way that is “unobtrusive and non-interfering” with lawmakers’ work.

“I have no intention of changing the way I live or do my job, because accessibility is part of who I am as a public official,” Blumenthal continued. “But I understand how people are scared.”

Capitol Police have poured significant financial resources over the last four years into overhauling their intelligence operations and expanding the assessment teams that handle the growing threats against lawmakers. Blumenthal said he wants those capabilities further ramped up, saying right now serious threats are too often “discounted as a prank or a joke.”

Sen. Mike Rounds (R-S.D.) made a similar case, arguing there would be value in having more tools to identify individuals who are “going beyond the normal bickering that you find on social media, getting to the point where they appear to be more dangerous or making actual accusations or threats to individuals that they might at some point act on in the future.”

Reps. Bryan Steil (R-Wis.) and Joe Morelle (D-N.Y.), the chair and ranking member of the House Administration Committee, on Tuesday wrote to the Justice Department requesting that an assistant U.S. attorney or a special assistant U.S. attorney be assigned “to each of the 94 federal districts to, at least on a part-time basis, investigate and prosecute threats against Members of Congress.”

Some lawmakers also continue to push for increased security and Capitol Police protection at their homes in the aftermath of the attackon then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband at their San Francisco residence in Oct. 2022. Capitol Police have tried to build strong working relationships with local departments to counter threats, swatting attempts and problems at town halls or other events — hoping that local law enforcement can help fill the gaps in protection faced by members of Congress when they’re back home.

The force opened several satellite offices in the aftermath of the Jan. 6 riots, too, in part to respond to increased threats to lawmakers outside of Washington. The department reported more than 9,400 threats against members in 2024, and a good number of those were deemed credible enough to require temporary protective details for rank-and-file lawmakers who otherwise would not be entitled to them.

In a statement, a Capitol Police spokesperson said the force would keep doing its work: “We continue to closely coordinate with the House and Senate Sergeant at Arms to enhance security for Members of Congress. Their partnerships, along with assistance from local, state, and federal law enforcement agencies across the country, are extremely important to keep everyone safe.

“For safety and security reasons, we will not discuss those details,” the spokesperson said, “but we will continue to focus on continuing intelligence sharing with our partners and providing proactive enhancements.”

But Manger lamented in an interview days before his retirement that, “We’re always robbing Peter to pay Paul to put that together,” referring to the need to urgently assemble Capitol Police details for members under threat.

Mullin conceded that no matter what choices lawmakers make, worries of political violence will continue to be a way of life.

“I operate right now with a tremendous amount of death threats on us. I mean, if you go to my house, I have bulletproof glass on the bottom part of my house. … We have cameras everywhere. We have security dogs,” said Mullin. “It is, unfortunately, the reality we live in.”

Lisa Kashinsky contributed to this report.

Lawmakers confronting a rise in political violence are grappling over whether to use more tax dollars for their own protection, even as Republicans search for deep cuts across the federal government.

That question will be tested next week, when the House Legislative Branch appropriations bill funding the operations of Capitol Hill gets marked up.

Top congressional Democrats are pushing for more money for both Capitol Police and for a program that provides funding for lawmakers’ personal security after the weekend shootings of state lawmakers in Minnesota. Some Republicans are also calling for a funding boost.

Only a select few leaders in each chamber have 24/7 security, while rank-and-file members have little day-to-day protection unless they’ve been deemed to be under an active threat. Some members, like Rep. Tim Burchett (R-Tenn.), want more widespread coverage.

There’s one problem: Some lawmakers have been reticent to take advantage of the resources that are already on offer. They can use official office funds to buy security equipment and take advantage of a program providing security upgrades for lawmakers’ primary residences. Capitol Police also offer to coordinate some in-district events with state and local police departments.

But while more than half of House lawmakers last year participated in the home security program, hundreds of thousands of dollars in security resources were left unspent, with those not enrolled citing either lack of interest or a feeling that the paperwork and approval process was too burdensome, according to two people familiar with the initiative.

Others are simply wary of additional safety measures that would restrict their freedom of movement and interactions with the public (not to mention intrude on family life).

“I don’t want to have security on me. I’m a very private person. I like to go outside and be by myself,” said Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.), who chairs the Appropriations subcommittee that funds Capitol Police.

Even so, the Capitol security budget could grow to new heights. The USCP budget request for fiscal 2026 is $967.8 million — a 22 percent boost over current levels. With lawmakers now calling for even beefier security post-Minnesota shootings, the budget for the relatively small force could soon top $1 billion.

What else we’re watching:

— GOP megabill’s unresolved issues: Rank-and-file Republican senators’ revolt over GOP leaders’ megabill changes is threatening to derail Senate Majority Leader John Thune’s goal to pass it next week. Even as the White House pushes to get the bill to Trump’s desk by Independence Day, Vice President JD Vance told Senate Republicans on Tuesday the ultimate deadline to get it to Trump’s desk is the August recess.

— Biden “cover-up” hearing: Congressional Republicans will hold their first hearing Wednesday on President Joe Biden’s mental decline. No Biden associates will appear before the panel co-chaired by Sens. Eric Schmitt (R-Mo.) and John Cornyn (R-Texas). Instead, the hearing will include testimony from former Trump administration officials — including former press secretary Sean Spicer and former deputy assistant Theo Wold.

— Rescissions update: Republicans will hold a hearing next Wednesday on the White House’s rescissions package. Susan Collins (R-Maine), the Senate’s top appropriator, said she wants “an in-depth hearing so that everybody knows exactly what is proposed and what the justification is.” OMB Director Russ Vought will testify.

Nicholas Wu, Jordain Carney, Hailey Fuchs, Jennifer Scholtes and Sophia Cai contributed to this report.

In Senate Majority Leader John Thune’s perfect world, he’d be ready by this time next week to start voting on the GOP’s sweeping megabill.

But this world is far from perfect, Thune and fellow Senate Republicans learned Tuesday. A host of concerns from diverse pockets of the GOP are threatening his grand plan of winning Senate passage by July 4 — with some in his ranks warning of an epic face-plant if Republican leaders push too hard, too fast.

“My guess is it will fail,” predicted Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) when asked about potentially calling votes next week. “I don’t want to see it fail. I want this thing to succeed.”

Monday’s highly anticipated release of legislative text on tax, health care and other key policy provisions only served to underscore the challenges yet to be overcome. Fiscal hawks like Johnson are sounding the alarm that the bill doesn’t do nearly enough to lower the deficit. More moderate senators are voicing deep unease about new Medicaid provisions. Still others don’t like the proposed changes to clean-energy incentives or President Donald Trump’s proposed tax cuts.

These considerable policy gaps are up against a thin Republican majority — Thune has only three votes to spare, and one all-but-guaranteed “no” vote in Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky — and a seemingly impossible timeline. Leaders are hoping to take a first vote on the megabill by next Wednesday or Thursday, according to GOP senators and aides, setting up final passage over the weekend.

But committees are still trying to get fiscal estimates for their proposals as well as final rulings from the Senate parliamentarian, which could jettison some of their pet provisions from the bill at the 11th hour.

While Vice President JD Vance backed the July 4 target for Senate passage during a closed-door lunch with Republican senators Tuesday, he pointed to the August recess as the ultimate deadline for getting a bill to Trump’s desk, according to two attendees.

The pessimism about quick Senate action has drifted downtown, where lobbyists are still poring over the 549-page text released Monday by the Senate Finance Committee. K Street power players are closely monitoring the negative reactions inside the Senate GOP.

“The general sense downtown that is causing concern is that the bill in its current form cannot pass either body,” said one lobbyist at a prominent Washington firm who was granted anonymity to share their views candidly. “So the bill is still, by necessity, open and will be changed.”

Another lobbyist, speaking under similar conditions, said that as Senate Republicans “have to shift policy to get votes, there are big dollars in play” that could force lawmakers to explore deep cuts in other policy areas — cuts that could expose entirely new fissures.

And that’s setting aside another inconvenient fact for Republicans: Whatever changes the Senate makes, the House will have to weigh in again after only narrowly passing its carefully crafted version of the bill last month. Some senators are already suggesting the House will just have to deal with whatever ends up getting sent back over.

“We first get 51 senators together and then we’ll see what the House can do,” Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) said Tuesday, referring to the contentious Finance text as “an initial draft.”

Getting 51 senators, however, is looking like a tall order.

GOP Sens. Josh Hawley of Missouri and Susan Collins of Maine reiterated their concerns Tuesday with the Finance proposal to cap medical provider taxes that fund state obligations to Medicaid, arguing that it could hurt rural hospitals.

Though her state doesn’t use provider taxes, Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) has her own concerns about different Medicaid language pertaining to new work requirements. Asked if she is prepared to vote down the bill over the Medicaid issues, she said, “I don’t think it’s going to stay in this form.”

Hawley separately critiqued the tax provisions rolled out by Senate Finance Chair Mike Crapo (R-Idaho), calling the package a “departure from what President Trump called for” in a Tuesday morning interview with MAGA strategist Steve Bannon: “They want to roll back some of these Trump tax cuts, the populist tax cuts: no taxes on tips, no taxes on overtime.”

He told reporters in the Capitol that he had spoken with Trump about the Senate proposal, describing the president as “surprised” by the bill’s Medicaid language. And Collins, who met with Vance separately this week, said she is still suggesting changes to the bill.

Thune, after the Senate’s closed-door lunch, acknowledged he is still negotiating with members of his conference, including Hawley and Collins, about “components or pieces of the bill that they would like to see modified or changed.”

Items that are likely to be the subject of the heaviest lobbying include a tax cut for pass-through businesses that was reduced from the House plan as well as a planned increase in university endowment taxes — even though Senate Republicans significantly softened what House Republicans had proposed.

The job of threading the needle has largely fallen to Crapo, the stealthy dealmaker who crafted the Medicaid and tax portion of the legislation and briefed GOP conference members Monday on the policies.

“He did what he does best: balanced everybody’s concerns and found the sweetest spot he could find, and it’s not adequate for some people,” said Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.) of how Crapo’s been fielding concerns from his colleagues.

One major issue is that Crapo’s draft made some business tax cuts permanent rather than sunsetting them at the end of 2029, as the House did — a key priority for himself and his fellow Finance Committee Republicans, but at the expense of some other provisions, including the provider tax.

“Every spending reduction that we were able to achieve was helpful in achieving the permanence,” Crapo told reporters Tuesday, estimating the Medicaid changes alone generated hundreds of billions of dollars in offsets.

But GOP senators who expected Crapo’s Medicaid language to largely match the House’s were caught off guard by those changes, and now he and Thune are dealing with potentially time-consuming pushback.

“I never thought we could get it done by the Fourth of July,” said Murkowski. “But you know what? I’m not in charge of the schedule.”

Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.) castigated President Donald Trump as a “vindictive president on a tour of retribution” and warned of what the administration was doing to Americans around the country in “places where there are no cameras” in his first comments on the Senate floor since his handcuffing at Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem’s press briefing last week.

Padilla’s handcuffing marked a sharp turn in an already dramatic week for Los Angeles, where Trump last week deployed National Guard troops and Marines to contain protests and unrest that erupted in response to the administration’s immigration detentions in the city. The altercation sparked outrage from Democrats, who slammed the administration’s heavy-handed response to a sitting senator.

In a statement released at the time, Padilla — as well as other Democrats who jumped on the messaging bandwagon — warned that his treatment by federal law enforcement portended higher risks for ordinary Americans.

He emphasized the same message to his Senate colleagues on Tuesday, cautioning that such a crackdown threatened to scare Americans into silence.

“How many Americans in the year 2025 see a vindictive president on a tour of retribution, unrestrained by the majority of this separate and coequal branch of government and wonder if it’s worth it to stand up or to speak out? If a United States senator becomes too afraid to speak up, how can we expect any other American to do the same?” Padilla said on Tuesday.

The California senator got emotional while describing how he struggled to maintain his balance as he was manhandled and forced out of the briefing room last week, before he was shoved to the ground and handcuffed, “first on my knees and then flat on my chest,” he recounted.

Padilla said he was placed in cuffs after attempting to ask a question pushing back against Noem’s claim that “the purpose of federal law enforcement and the purpose of the United States military was to ‘liberate Los Angeles from our governor and our mayor,’” which the senator decried as an “un-American” sentiment.

Noem and other administration officials have defended the actions, saying Padilla was just trying to draw attention to himself. “It wasn’t becoming of a U.S. senator or a public official, and perhaps he wanted the scene,” Noem told Fox News shortly after the dustup.

Padilla said that he had been escorted into the briefing room by a National Guardsman and an FBI agent, of whom he had asked permission to attend Noem’s press conference and who had walked him through security screening. Still, Padilla said, the law enforcement personnel “stood by silently” as he was forcibly removed from the room and handcuffed.

“If what you saw happen can happen when the cameras are on, imagine not only what can happen but what is happening in so many places where there are no cameras,” Padilla said, before warning that the incident was “not just about immigrant communities or even just the state of California — it’s about every single American who values their constitutional rights.”

The senator encouraged Americans to exercise their right to peacefully protest in the face of the increasing crackdowns from the Trump administration, adding that “no one is coming to save us but us.”

“If this administration is this afraid of just one senator with a question, colleagues, imagine what the voices of tens of millions of Americans peacefully protesting can do,” he said.

The sweeping domestic policy package House Republicans passed last month would increase the U.S. deficit by $2.8 trillion over a decade when considering economic effects, according to Congress’ nonpartisan scorekeeper.

That’s above the $2.4 trillion price tag the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimated in a prior analysis that did not factor in how the legislation would change interest rates, inflation and economic growth. Republicans have anticipated the new “dynamic” analysis would include significant growth effects, reducing the overall fiscal impact of the Republican megabill.

CBO did find that the legislation would modestly boost economic growth over a decade, by 0.5 percent on average. But those effects would be swamped by the costs of higher interest rates, forecasters found, which would boost payments on the national debt by an estimated $440 billion over that time. Over five years, inflation would increase “by a small amount” because of the bill, the budget office predicts.

Senate Republicans are racing now to finalize changes to the House-passed version of the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” they want to send to President Donald Trump’s desk by July 4 to enact the president’s biggest campaign-trail promises.

In a separate “distributional” analysis last week, CBO forecast that the House bill would cause the lowest-income households in the United States to lose $1,600 a year in federal resources, while increasing resources by $12,000 for the highest-income households.

Democrats are using CBO’s predictions to fuel their attacks against the package. The new report published Tuesday “will disappoint every Republican who hoped tax breaks for billionaires would magically pay for themselves,” said Pennsylvania Rep. Brendan Boyle, the top Democrat on the House Budget Committee.

Vice President JD Vance expressed confidence Congress could deliver President Donald Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” by July 4 as he left a closed-door lunch with GOP senators Tuesday at the Capitol.

“I mean, look, I can’t make any promises … I can’t predict the future, but I do think that we’re in a good place to get this done by the July 4 recess,” Vance told reporters.

Vance said he was “gratified and optimistic” by what he heard from GOP senators who are racing to resolve major policy disputes over Medicaid and tax incentives after Senate Finance proposed changes Monday that caught some Republicans off guard.

The vice president said he met Monday with Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, who’s raised concerns with potential cuts to Medicaid, including the Senate’s proposal to pare down the provider tax several states use to fund their Medicaid programs.

“She’s got some concerns. And other folks have concerns. You just have to work through them,” Vance said. “You have to identify ‘what are the ways that we can address those concerns?’ If we can’t address that concern in your preferred way, is there another way that we can fix it that’s just part of the legislative process?”

Vance underscored there was broad alignment among the GOP over blocking undocumented people from using Medicaid, along with those who choose not to work. Negotiations will focus on satisfying senators with concerns around further changes, he added.

“They’re all very confident we’re eventually going to get there,” Vance said.

As Vance left the meeting, he also huddled with Mehmet Oz, the CMS administrator who attended the lunch with GOP senators.

Utah Sen. Mike Lee, amid widespread outrage, has deleted a pair of social media posts associating the deadly Minnesota shootings last weekend with “Marxists” and the state’s Democratic governor.

The move to remove the X posts came amid criticism from a Republican colleague Tuesday. Sen. Kevin Cramer of North Dakota told reporters said Lee’s decision to comment online over the weekend “seems insensitive, to say the least, inappropriate, for sure” and “not even true.”

“I don’t know if this person was a Marxist or not,” Cramer said. “I have no sense. Nor does it matter, by the way, nor does it matter. I mean … what happened is absolutely, positively unacceptable in any political environment, and it’s tragic.”

Pressed on Lee’s response, Cramer added, “He maybe should have waited longer before he responded. I don’t know where he stands today on it. I just know where I do … the politics of this shooter are so irrelevant to me. … I just think whenever you rush to a judgment like this, when your political instincts kick in during a tragedy, you probably should realign some priorities, but I haven’t talked to Mike about it personally.”

A spokesperson for Lee did not immediately return a request for comment on why the posts were taken down.

Democratic Sen. Tina Smith of Minnesota, who was a friend of murdered state Rep. Melissa Hortman, confronted Lee just off the Senate floor Monday to condemn his comments. Republican senators POLITICO spoke to yesterday largely avoided direct condemnation, but signaled discomfort with politicizing the incident.

The deleted posts from Lee’s @BasedMikeLee personal account included a photo of the suspect in the shooting, Vance Boelter, with the caption: “This is what happens … When Marxists don’t get their way.” Another post featuring a photo of Boelter was captioned: “Nightmare on Waltz Street,” in apparent reference to Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz.

Lee did not respond to reporters’ questions about the posts yesterday but he replied to a X user who said, “According to Democrats you’re not allowed to make sarcastic posts anymore!”

“Ah yes,” he posted. “I must seek their permission.” That post remained up Tuesday afternoon.

Jordain Carney contributed to this report.