MAGA Desperately Scrambles to Claim Minnesota Assassin Is a Democrat

Vance Boelter allegedly shot and killed Democratic Minnesota state Representative Melissa Hortman and her husband Saturday. Hours later, conservatives were twisting Boelter’s political ideology to shield MAGA, claiming that the suspected cop/masked killer was a deranged leftist seeking violent retribution.

In reality, Boelter was a Trump supporter who voted for Donald Trump in November, his best friend David Carlson told reporters Saturday. Boelter was a longtime conservative who was a registered Republican when he and his wife lived in Oklahoma in the early 2000s. He was against abortion rights but “never mentioned any particular anger with the lawmakers who were shot,” Carlson told CNN.

None of that seemed to faze conservatives, however, who spent the aftermath of the attack skewing Boelter’s beliefs to frame the other side of the aisle.

Long after reports spilled out that Boelter was a conservative, Elon Musk took to X to claim that “the far left is murderously violent,” quote tweeting a self-described MAGA Trumper lumping Boelter into the left, which she said had become a “full blown domestic terrorist organization.”

Saturday night, far-right influencer Laura Loomer told her followers that the media was trying to “gaslight” Americans into believing that the “shooter in Minnesota is a Trump supporter.” Loomer also decried local organizers of the nationwide “No Kings” movement, and called for their detention alongside Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, Kamala Harris’s 2024 vice presidential pick.

Podcast host Alec Lace questioned if Hortman was “fearful” that “her base would become unhinged,” after she sided with Republicans as the lone Democratic-Farmer-Labor (DFL) party member to repeal state health care for undocumented immigrants.

“Was her vote the motive?” posited Lace.

The tune had still not changed by Sunday, when Fox News contributor Paul Mauro described Boelter’s political background as “murky” while advancing the conspiracy that Hortman had been assassinated for her vote, rejecting Carlson’s recollection of his friend by claiming that he had not offered enough details to qualify Boelter as a conservative.

“The political backdrop of this is, again, murky. Going to the roommate, yea, voted for Donald Trump, but he was not engaged in local politics,” Mauro said. “And I didn’t know anything — that he even knew these local politicians, he didn’t seem to be very engaged in all of that. He says the only thing that seemed to be engaged with politically was that he was anti-abortion. That seems to be the only solid thing that the roommate can point to.”

Mauro then claimed that Boelter had “associations” with Walz and had received money from the governor.

Boelter “stalked his victims like prey” and “shot them in cold blood,” acting U.S. Attorney for the District of Minnesota Joseph Thompson said during a press conference Monday, likening Boelter’s alleged crime to “the stuff of nightmares.” The 57-year-old reportedly approached the Hortman residence and the home of Minnesota Senator John Hoffman dressed as a cop in tactical gear and a hyper-realistic silicon mask.

Boelter also owned a police-styled SUV with a license plate that read “police.” The car “looked exactly like an SUV squad car,” equipped with emergency lights, according to Brooklyn Park Police Chief Mark Bruley. It was convincing enough that it fooled an officer who was dispatched to conduct a wellness check on a politician in the city of New Hope after Boelter allegedly attacked Hoffman and his wife. Upon seeing the vehicle near the lawmaker’s home, the officer pulled up alongside Boelter’s car, believing that he was another cop who had beaten them to the scene, before allowing Boelter to slip away, according to Thompson.