Staffers for Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid took to Twitter on Tuesday to fire back at conservative theories that the Nevada Democrat didn’t get his current injuries from an exercising accident earlier this year.
Adam Jentleson, Reid’s communications director, mocked a theory — floated over the weekend on Power Line Blog — that Reid was actually beat up by the mob.
The Nevada Democrat told CNN earlier Tuesday he decided to run for reelection in 2010 and not “let the bastards beat me,” after a Nevada newspaper called on him to quit.
Faiz Shakir, a senior adviser for Reid, jokingly suggested that “after the mob hit,” he wanted to use another excuse besides saying that the senator’s injuries were caused by exercise bands.
The theory that Reid didn’t get his injuries during an exercising accident, as the Nevada Democrat has stated many times that he did, has gained traction in conservative media circles, after the senator announced last week he won’t run for reelection next year.
{mosads}Rush Limbaugh on Friday said Reid “looks like and is acting like — and now with this announcement, behaving like — somebody who may have been beaten up.”
Power Line blogger John Hinderaker added to the theory Saturday, writing that, according to a story from a friend of his who had visited Las Vegas, Reid was beat up by the mob.
“The principal rumor my friend heard was that Reid had promised to obtain some benefit for a group of mobsters,” he writes, adding that: “Reid (according to the rumor) made a comment that they considered disrespectful, and one of them beat him up.”
Breitbart News’s Michael Patrick Leahy also weighed in Tuesday, with an article outlining the results of the organization’s “investigation of Reid’s home exercise accident,” adding that their findings “appear to discredit” what the Nevada Democrat says happened.
Shakir, in a tweet, slammed the story, calling it “Everything you need to know about conserative ‘journalism’: dogged in pursuit of idiocy,” before joking in a separate tweet to “stay tuned” for a second installment of its Reid investigation.
Reid was absent from the Senate for weeks earlier this year after an accident involving exercise bands that required him to undergo surgery.
Copyright 2023 Nexstar Media Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
