Reid says he wishes Franken would run for Senate again

Former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) says in a new interview that he wishes former Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) would run again, despite Franken’s resignation amid a slew of sexual misconduct allegations.

Reid told the Daily Beast in an interview published Wednesday that Franken, 68, made a “good senator” who got a “bad deal” from his fellow Democrats, many of whom urged him to resign after multiple women accused him of inappropriate and unwanted sexual contact in 2017.

{mosads}“I wish he would [run again],” Reid said. “But I don’t think he will. He just feels hurt. And he was a good senator.”

“He got a bad deal,” he added.

The former Nevada senator retired two years before Franken’s ouster and currently sits on the faculty at the University of Nevada-Las Vegas’s law school.

Minnesota’s two sitting senators — including Franken’s replacement, Sen. Tina Smith — are both Democrats. Smith’s current term is up next year, while Sen. Amy Klobuchar, whose term doesn’t end until 2024, is seeking the Democratic presidential nomination.

In a recent interview, Franken told The New Yorker that he should have waited for the results of the Senate Ethics Committee’s investigation before resigning.

“I can’t go anywhere without people reminding me of this, usually with some version of ‘You shouldn’t have resigned,’ ” he said.

Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), who is also running for president and was one of Franken’s earliest critics in the Senate, has defended her calls for Franken to resign in recent weeks, noting that multiple women came forward with similar allegations of inappropriate behavior.

“Who is being held accountable for Al Franken’s decision to resign? Women senators, including me. It’s outrageous,” Gillibrand said last month.