Former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is nostalgic for the days Al Franken was in the Senate.
Franken, who had been accused of groping and trying to kiss several women, announced his resignation in December 2017 amid pressure from members of his own party to step down.
Reid told the Daily Beast he wants the Minnesota Democrat to run for public office again.
“I wish he would,” he said. “But I don’t think he will. He just feels hurt. And he was a good senator.”
Reid said Franken “got a bad deal.” The two served together in the Senate from 2011 until Reid retired in 2016.
Franken told the New Yorker in a recent interview that he regrets bowing to pressure to resign. Many of his Senate colleagues also expressed remorse for urging him to resign, though they have not called for him to run again.
Vermont Democratic Sen. Patrick Leahy said it was “one of the biggest mistakes I’ve made” in his 45 years in Congress.
Former North Dakota Democratic Sen. Heidi Heitkamp said, “If there’s one decision I’ve made that I would take back, it’s the decision to call for his resignation. It was made in the heat of the moment, without concern for exactly what this was.”
“I realized almost right away I’d made a mistake. I felt terrible. I should have stood up for due process to render what it’s supposed to — the truth,” former Florida Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson said.
