The problem isn’t just that the Utah senator amplified obvious misinformation. The bigger problem is that Mike Lee keeps amplifying misinformation.

Utah’s political leadership is regrouping after three failed attempts to wrest public lands from the federal government this year.

Utah’s Republican leaders are applauding plans to downsize the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s workforce in Washington, D.C. and send employees to five regional hubs, including one in Salt Lake City.

Last month, Lee introduced a now-removed amendment to Trump’s policy megabill that mandated the sale of up to 3 million acres. It did little to address the challenges of building affordable housing on public land.

Sen. Mike Lee’s public lands sell-off rider, meant to be part of the “One Big Beautiful Bill,” is officially dead. But using history as our guide, Utah’s political leadership will likely be back with a new strategy and some new legal maneuver to gain control over at least some of its 35 million acres owned and managed by the federal government.

"He’s not wrong about the concept, he was just not wise in the approach he used,” Republican Thom Tillis said of the Senate Energy chair.

Lee has lamented the impact of those historic changes on Utah, where 42% of the state is BLM land, saying in a 2018 speech, “Manifest destiny had left us behind, in some respects.”

Gov. Spencer Cox denounced X posts made by Utah’s GOP U.S. Sen. Mike Lee last month that seemed to mock the assassination of a Minnesota lawmaker and her spouse and the shooting of another.