Bulwark Takes - MAGA Push Lies As Minnesota Shooter Revealed To Be Trump Supporter

Episode Date: June 15, 2025

Tim Miller returns with a disturbing update on the targeted political assassination of Minnesota Democratic State Rep. Melissa Hortman and the attempted assassination of another Democratic lawmaker. The suspect, Vance Boulter, impersonated a police officer, arrived in a fake cop vehicle, and executed a horrifying plan that appears clearly politically motivated—targeting Democrats including Governor Tim Walz and Rep. Ilhan Omar. But instead of facing this reality, prominent voices on the far right—including Elon Musk, Charlie Kirk, Mike Cernovich, and even U.S. Senator Mike Lee—have pushed a conspiracy theory suggesting the killer was somehow motivated by left-wing grievance. Tim breaks down how this false narrative spread like wildfire and what it reveals about the state of right-wing media, social platforms, and our broken political discourse.

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Have fun with the details. Customize what you want the way you want and manage your whole business from a centralized dashboard with expert AI tools. Build, scale, and enjoy the incredible results. You can do it all yourself on Wix. Hey everybody, Tim Miller from The Bullwork here. Another update on the investigation

into the assassination of state rep Melissa Hortman, a top Democrat in the Minnesota House, and the attempted assassination of another Democratic lawmaker in Minnesota. The public officials have named the suspect Vance Bolter. He's 57 years old and you have a video now of him coming to the homes, coming to the doors, doorbell video of him with his kind of fake police truck in the background. As mentioned in the earlier video, he dressed as a cop and impersonated a cop taking out these assassinations. Also, assassination attempt in the second case. Also, we continue to learn more about what is in the car, the list of other groups and individuals he wanted to target, all Democrats, including

Governor Tim Walz, Ilhan Omar, including some left wing activist groups. And so, you know, like, it's not hard to really fully understand to, you know, to get a sense for the motive, I guess, at this point. And yet, I am I'm reluctant, I was reluctant to come back on do this, to talk about what is happening in the dialogue in the far right fever swamps talking about these assassination attempts, but it has bubbled up to such prominent accounts that I feel like it must be addressed. And that is that we are seeing from mega Republicans, from influential right-wing accounts and the advancement of a notion that this assassin or the suspect was a Democrat of some kind and was unhappy with his

fellow Democrats because I guess in Minnesota, they just passed a bill, or they failed to pass a bill, rather, that would have given health care to undocumented immigrants, and some Democrats, including the deceased, had voted with Republicans on that bill. And so I guess that is the theory of the case. It is horrific and preposterous and speaks to a very dark heart that we are seeing this from the right, that immediately the reaction to this tragedy is to advance a lie and a conspiracy, to try to win some political battle and some imaginary never-ending Twitter war that they're in with the left.

And I just want to go through a couple of the examples Just to show you that that just how prominent this is and how deep it goes We've Elon Musk himself the owner of Twitter and the former shadow president He posted the far left is murderously violent this is in response to. A tweet that lists a couple of different shootings recently, including Luigi Mangione and then lumps in with that.

This, uh, killing of the Minnesota state rep, um, the post he's replying to says the left has become a full blown domestic terror organization. So that's what Elon Musk is putting out there. You have Charlie Kirk. Um, uh, one of many people who are blaming this on Tim Walls, I guess because he almost had appointed this man to some nonpartisan board in Minnesota. Charlie Kirk says, total shocker that smearing a duly elected president who won an overwhelming electoral mandate as a fascist leads to

violent political radicalization. I Don't even know how you get your head there But the Charlie Kirk thing is downright mild compared to what we're seeing in other corners of the internet Mike Cernovich Again, you might think this is a random person is 1.4 million followers was an early Trump endorser that had a book, The Gorilla Mindset about, you know, kind of being an alpha male, quote unquote, that was very influential in the Maggots. This is somebody with a real following and influence.

He posted this, did Tim Walz activate an assassin against a political rival who voted against him, who voted against his, I think is what he meant to say their plan to give illegal immigrants free healthcare. No, that would be my answer to to smack Sernovich on that Tim Walls did not activate an assassin against a political rival. Like, this, like these brain worms are so, are burrowed so deep that it's like, how do you even, how do you live in a society where this stuff is being promulgated? It goes on. James Woods, the actor James Woods, who has 4.8 million followers, resigned Tim Walz, your violent rhetoric is costing too many lives. The New York Post, you know, in a news

story, here's a screenshot here, and they're continuing to update it as news breaks, but they begin with former appointee of Tim Walz, sought a politically motivated assassination of Minnesota lawmaker and husband days after she voted with GOP. So again, this is like, what they're implying there is very clear that this must be some Democratic appointee that's mad about this immigration vote. The person had a, we already know we had a list of people we wanted to kill and it was all Democrats. Like when something is this obvious and yet like a counter narrative develops that is that widespread that goes so high as to include the richest man in the world, the owner of

an influential social media platform, tons of prominent accounts, an influential tabloid. And these people have lost their mind. Dinesh D'Souza, who bears on Fox frequently, is also influential. His son-in-law just got elected to Congress. He's posted like a thousand times this image of no kings. He tweeted at me among other people. And it's inside of the suspect's car, all these no kings flyers referencing the no kings protests that were happening today that were very well attended, it turns out. I appreciate everybody that

went out. It's great to see people in New Orleans. But so Dinesh, just as Susan thinks that this is some evidence that he is like a resistance liberal and not the obvious solution, which is that he was looking at different potential targets for his politically motivated violence. And we also had a sitting US Senator advancing this lie. Here is Senator Mike Lee. Yeah, that's his real Twitter account. It says based Mike Lee. That's the world we're in right now where US Senator has like a troll account where he describes himself as based. But he's responding to Libs of TikTok, which is a right wing account that is run by a woman that has been welcomed into the White House is very influential in Trump world. She is saying that this is a Tim Walz appointee with no King's flyers

in his car. And he went on a shooting spree. And base might be replies to that with Marxism is a deadly mental illness. As if, like the notion is this person is a Marxist, he wants us to believe that it's just, it's fucking insane, that US Senator could put out something that crazy. So, like the fact that all this is happening when everything is very obvious shows you, I think is why this is really important to talk about. Like we have the far right has this vast disinformation system that is trying to blame every bad thing that happens

on Democrats, even when the facts are blatantly obvious in the other direction. Even when it's a Democrat that gets assassinated, they're still trying to blame it on Democrats. And it's a deep sickness and a deep rot that we're seeing in the mega media. So I, you know, given that it's so obvious, it's almost like you don't need to you don't even need this. But I want to play this video for a local news interview with a longtime friend of the suspect talking about the suspect's politics.

We even asked about Mr. Bolter's political affiliations and David Carlson, once again his roommate and best friend, known him since fourth grade, did say Bolter voted for Trump and that he was a strong supporter. So there you go, voted for Trump was a strong Trump supporter. Other evidence, you know, about evangelical Christian views, views on social issues like abortion. So, you know, it's sad. I want to say if you sense I'm like a little reluctant to this video I do think that like one of the deep signs of sickness in our culture all around and so I want viewers of this to just kind of think about this and sit with this for a second Because obviously I'm not trying there's no comparison between what you see in response to

Shooters on the left versus what you're seeing from this like mass disinformation campaign, this heinous gross personal disinformation campaign from the right. But I think the one of the signs of the sickness in our culture is that when these horrors happen, and they happen too often because of how easy there is access to firearms in this country. When whenever this happens, there's like a instinct among people that are very political to like root for the perpetrator to have been from the other political tribe. And, and I, I do see this across the board. This there's this

like design, it's almost like a happiness or relief when it's the other side. And I don't like that. It makes me very uncomfortable. It doesn't do anything for Melissa Hartman or her family for to like use this as a political cudgel. Her life being snuffed out is not fixed by it. It's not remediated in any way. It doesn't bring any comfort to her family. It's not, it doesn't matter. Like it's not like, you know, no, there aren't going to be big elections won or lost based on who the perpetrator is of random acts of political violence. And so like deciding that like it's valid, you know, caring about who wins the news cycle

or whatever, um, I think is, is a sign, it's something that I think about it myself. Like sometimes I noticed this, um, you know, like almost a deep sigh of breath, um, when something terrible happens for like, Oh, I hope it's not, you know, um, somebody with my political views, because then they're gonna get blamed for it. Like, you just have this feeling and like, that's wrong. It's like an inhuman instinct. And I think it's a sign of our broken politics that like that you see that being so widespread. So I

just I just wanted to say that. And to say that like that, that is something that all of us, I think, have an obligation to fight against and to be to have more empathy and just feelings for our fellow Americans, regardless of their political beliefs in times of trauma and crisis and horror like this. And so I did want to say that, but that said, like, you can't not talk about it when the richest man in the world and all these influential Republicans have like a coordinated campaign to try to turn an assassination of a Democrat into like some Democratic, some crime that Democrats are responsible for. And many, many people are in my mentions doing this to me. And so I just want to say, I hope you guys, I don't know that many of them are watching this YouTube, but if you are, if a friend

sends it to you, if you have a friend in your life who's doing this, please reflect. Please think about your choices. Because this is this is a dark place, and I don't really expect much better behavior for Elon Musk in the future. But boy, what we've seen today from the mega right in response to these assassinations is truly depressing, disheartening, depraved, sickening. And so we'll leave it there. As news develops on this, we'll continue to monitor it, of course. And thanks for sticking with us. Subscribe to the feed. We'll see you soon. for just $45 a month when you switch and bring your phone. That's our best price ever on Unlimited Welcome, with auto pay plus taxes and fees, guaranteed for 3 years. Because at Verizon, we got you. Visit your local DC Verizon store today.