Murdered Democrat’s Children Slam Trump for Pushing Conspiracy About Her Killing

The children of Minnesota Democratic lawmaker Melissa Hortman are accusing President Trump of weaponizing their mother’s assassination, saying his newest conspiracy-laden Truth Social post is pouring gasoline on a political climate already cracking under rising extremist violence.

Hortman, 55, and her husband, Mark, 58, were murdered inside their Brooklyn Park home last June by a man prosecutors say was obsessed with online lies. Their dog was shot too. For their children, the trauma was already unimaginable.

Then Donald Trump stepped in.

“Stop using my dead parents for political gain,” her son, Colin Hortman, wrote in a furious statement Sunday. “The man who killed them believed conspiracy theories and fake news. Now the president is spreading more of it.”

He added, “Words killed my parents. And the president’s words can get more people killed.”

His sister Sophie went even further, calling Trump’s post “a grotesque twisting of my mother’s life and her last vote” and warning that the video he shared “puts real targets on innocent people’s backs.”

“It creates fear,” she said. “It creates division. And it creates copycats.”

The video Trump amplified over the weekend makes a shocking claim: that Gov. Tim Walz somehow benefited from Hortman’s murder over a state budget vote. There is zero evidence for the theory. But the video splices together ominous music, misleading graphics, and Hortman’s own archived comments to create the illusion of scandal.

It even suggests the accused gunman once worked in Walz’s administration. That is false. His only connection was a long-defunct volunteer spot on an unpaid advisory board.

Still, Trump shared the clip without hesitation — even as his administration was boasting about the capture of Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro, a moment that now feels overshadowed by the president’s domestic chaos machine.

Gov. Walz did not hold back.

“This is dangerous and depraved behavior from a sitting president,” he said Monday. “We just laid two people to rest. The lies he is pushing could inspire more bloodshed.”

Even Republican lawmakers in Minnesota — some usually reluctant to break with Trump — condemned the conspiracy mongering. State Sen. Julia Coleman called the theories “sickening” and warned that they could “provoke extremists who don’t need any more encouragement.”

A state investigator working the case, who spoke on background, echoed that fear.

“When the president endorses a conspiracy theory, millions of unstable people think it’s real,” the investigator said. “We’ve seen it escalate violence over and over again.”

Prosecutors say 58-year-old Vance Boelter carried out a 90-minute rampage while impersonating law enforcement. He shot the Hortmans in their home, wounded State Sen. John Hoffman and his wife, and attempted to shoot Hoffman’s daughter.

Authorities have repeatedly stressed, with growing exhaustion, that there is no political conspiracy behind the killings.

Boelter has pleaded not guilty. But investigators say his social-media history is filled with the same kinds of lies Trump continues to amplify.

“He was living inside a conspiracy bubble,” one federal official said. “And now the president is reinforcing that bubble for millions of people.”

Tensions in the state have soared during Trump’s second term, particularly as he and right-wing influencers paint Minnesota’s Somali American community as responsible for pandemic-era fraud in the Feeding Our Future case.

Local leaders say the rhetoric has triggered harassment, threats, and confrontations at public events. Now, with Trump dragging a real murder into the narrative, they fear the situation could tip from dangerous to deadly.

“We are watching a president take an unthinkable tragedy and turn it into a weapon,” said Democratic strategist Erin McLaughlin. “This isn’t politics. It’s incitement.”

The White House did not respond to questions about whether Trump would delete the conspiracy video or apologize to the grieving family he has now thrust into a national firestorm.

For now, the post remains up — gathering views, inflaming tensions, and tormenting a family trying to bury their parents in peace.

“Please,” Colin said. “Let my parents rest.”