As the 113th Congress draws to a close, outgoing Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) wants everybody to feel bad for him.
The lawmaker complained on the Senate floor Monday about the fact that he hasn’t had the chance to sleep in his new Las Vegas home.
“We’re going to have to be here until we finish our work, whether that’s Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, or Saturday,” Reid told his fellow senators. “So everyone should understand you can’t be leaving.”
“I know we all have things to do,” he continued in a solemn voice. “I haven’t been home, Mr. President, in such a long time. And I want go home. I bought a new home there, as everyone knows. I sold my place in Searchlight. I have a home in the greater Las Vegas area. And I’d like to be able to see the home. I have not slept in it. We bought it in May. I have not been there. My wife is there.”
Undoubtedly, Reid was particularly down in the dumps Monday because he is savoring his last few days as Senate Majority Leader, a position he will give up to Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Kent.) come January.
In a recent interview with Politico, Reid committed himself to blocking Republicans’ “crazy stuff” when the next Congress commences.
“I believe that my job in my Democratic Caucus is to try to pass legislation,” the Nevada Democrat explained. “I’m anxious to do it. I want to do some mainstream things. But I believe that if [Republicans] want to try to do all this crazy stuff, we’re getting out of that stream. … If it’s not mainstream, they’re not going to have us to play with.”
Predictably, Reid blamed the GOP completely for the gridlock in Washington.
“There’s nothing we tried to do that they were in favor of,” he said of congressional Republicans.
Amid the gridlock, Reid still insists that he is President Obama’s closest friend on Capitol Hill.
“He’s said I’m certainly the best friend he has up here,” Reid told Politico of Obama. “So that’s what he says to me. I’m sure he says that to anybody who asks him.”
Reid has consistently emphasized his and Obama’s close relationship despite rumors of a growing tide between the two Democrats.
Nevertheless, the senator was quite willing to blame the rollout of the president’s championed health care law for the Democrats’ losses in the midterm election.
“We never recovered from the Obamacare rollout,” Reid said when asked about contributing factors in the midterm election results. “I’m not going to beat up on Obama. The rollout didn’t go well. We never recovered from that.”
