It's not just Bernie vs. Hillary vs. Debbie Wasserman Schultz. Congress is not looking too healthy either. And Harry Reid seems to be cracking in a big way.
A former boxer, Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid is not one to back down from a fight — even with a fellow Democrat. Neither is Rep. Alan Grayson, the combative Florida congressman running for the Senate.
The two engaged in an angry, in-your-face exchange Wednesday after Grayson interrupted Reid at a Congressional Progressive Caucus meeting to challenge the senator over his criticism and calls for Grayson to abandon his Senate bid.
Reid has endorsed Grayson's Democratic opponent in the Florida Senate primary, Rep. Patrick Murphy. He has assailed Grayson over an ethics investigation focused on a hedge fund that Grayson ran with operations in the Cayman Islands.
Grayson called Reid's comments untrue and shameful.
"I asked him more than once, 'What is your basis for making that statement?' and he couldn't come up with anything more than, 'I want you to lose,'" Grayson said in an interview with The Associated Press.
"He's bullying me and he's slandering me," Grayson said of Reid.
Reid spokeswoman Kristen Orthman said the 76-year-old senator "took the opportunity" of Grayson's interruption "to express his low opinion of Congressman Grayson to his face."
Reid reminded Grayson that he is "under ethics investigation and appears to be running a Cayman Islands hedge fund from his congressional office in order to line his own pockets because these things are true, as established by 74 pages' worth of evidence from the Congressional Ethics Committee," Orthman said.
Grayson's office quickly emailed a retort from the congressman: "I have a low opinion of Reid's low opinion."
This isn't the first Democratic candidate whom Reid has even picked a fight with lately. The Prog Caucus isn't backing Grayson, probably because no one would back Grayson on anything except a spitting contest. Then again everyone hates Reid too. And public confrontations like these are a bellwether of congressional chaos.
“Say my name, senator. Say my name,” Grayson told Reid as Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.) tried to shut down the confrontation. Ellison chided Grayson, asking him what he was doing and why he was distracting from the meeting’s goals.
Grayson responded by angrily waving a printout of Reid’s searing quote that called on Grayson to drop out of the primary race against Rep. Patrick Murphy (D-Fla.).
“Why’d you say that?” Grayson said, insisting Reid’s statement was false.
Reid calmly faced his inquisitor: “I want you to lose. It’s true.”
One source in the room said that members rarely get meetings with Reid and were frustrated that they were unable to strategize over the Supreme Court, Donald Trump’s nomination and other issues because of the outburst.
Or much of anything else. The Democrats have become dysfunctional. Their leadership is badly broken. And considering we're talking about people like DWS, Pelosi and Reid, that's not surprising.
For two terms, Obama and his people sucked most of the political oxygen out of the room while leaving the Democrats with little. The Republican victories created a situation in which Democrats in Congress play a very minor role in a wrestling match between Obama and the GOP. So the meltdown was inevitable. While Obama is riding high, Democrats have suffered too many losses and have been cut out of the process.
So the Democrats are cracking up.