Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) walked straight into a political buzzsaw this week after trying to shame people for mocking Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s latest fall—only for the internet to remind him that he’s done exactly the same thing, if not worse.
On Thursday, McConnell, 83, reportedly fell at the Capitol—another public health scare for the aging GOP leader whose previous freeze-ups have already fueled questions about his fitness to serve. The incident quickly spread across social media, with some users posting memes and sarcastic reactions. But Lee was not having it.
“No decent person should mock an 83 year old’s fall,” he posted to X. “Finding it amusing is hard to fathom.”
Well, it turns out what’s hard to fathom is how Lee didn’t expect the internet to come with receipts.
Critics didn’t have to dig deep to find the hypocrisy. Back in July, Lee himself mocked President Joe Biden after the 80-year-old tripped while boarding Air Force One—a moment that spawned its own wave of viral jokes and reaction clips. Lee joined in, gleefully posting, “He’s totally fine,” with a sarcastic emoji-laden tweet over a clip of Biden’s stumble.
“Is this you?” asked Shannon Watts, founder of Moms Demand Action, who reposted the screenshot of Lee’s mocking tweet next to his new statement about McConnell.
Others were less polite.
“So to clarify, you’re not a decent person,” posted “MikeTheNavyGuy,” a veteran who didn’t miss the irony.
And it didn’t stop there.
Lee also faced renewed backlash for a tweet he posted back in June—this one tied to an actual tragedy. After the fatal shooting of Minnesota state Sen. Terry Ann McDaniel and her husband, Lee took the opportunity to make a joke: “Nightmare on Waltz Street,” a cringeworthy attempt at humor referencing the 1984 slasher flick A Nightmare on Elm Street, and Minnesota’s Democratic governor, Tim Walz.
That one didn’t go unnoticed, either.
“This you Mike Lee mocking an assassination?” asked criminal justice advocate “RomyInMA,” who also shared a screenshot of the now-deleted tweet. “Spare us your faux moral high ground.”
The pile-on didn’t let up as Friday rolled into Saturday, with Lee’s name trending for all the wrong reasons. Users accused the Utah senator of moral grandstanding and being more interested in partisan point-scoring than any genuine standard of decency.
While Lee quietly deleted the “Waltz Street” tweet following the initial blowback in June, it resurfaced amid this week’s incident like a bad penny.
And here’s the thing—no one’s arguing that McConnell’s fall should be treated like a punchline. But the online outrage aimed at Lee wasn’t about laughing at McConnell. It was about calling out the hypocrisy of someone trying to draw lines in the sand that they’ve already trampled over.
Sen. Lee’s attempt to shame others ended up being a mirror—and it wasn’t a flattering one.
