GOP Rep Doesn’t Exactly Deny Last Person To Touch Him Wound Up Dead

Rep. Don Young, R-Alaska, leaves a closed-door Republican strategy session dealing with the the immigration crisis on the U.S.-Mexico border at the Capitol in Washington, Thursday, July 31, 2014. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
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It is suddenly a bit of an open question whether the last person to touch Rep. Don Young (R-AK) somehow ended up dead.

Earlier this month, according to the Alaska Dispatch News, Young’s Democratic challenger Forrest Dunbar said that he had put his hand on Young’s arm backstage while they were talking before a debate.

“He freaked out. There is no other way to describe it,” Dunbar told ADN. “He kind of snarled at me and said, ‘Don’t you ever touch me. Don’t ever touch me. The last guy who touched me ended up on the ground dead.'”

A radio station employee who was backstage confirmed to ADN that she heard Young, 81, saying “something about the last guy who touched me, blah, blah” to Dunbar, who is 30.

So what’s up with that?

Well, Roll Call profiled Young this week, noting that he has “a reputation for being ornery, aggressive — and maybe even a little unstable.” The news outlet asked Young about the exchange with Dunbar.

CQ Roll Call asked Young about that comment — whether the last person to touch him really did end up dead. The congressman’s response: “There’s some truth to that.”

It’s unclear if he was suggesting there was some truth to what Dunbar said, or, more hair-raisingly, if there was some truth to someone ending up dead. Young didn’t elaborate, and his press secretary instructed CQ Roll Call to move on.

Which, it is safe to say, raises some questions.

TPM’s request for clarity from Young’s spokesperson Friday was not immediately returned.

(h/t NY Mag)

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Notable Replies

  1. He’s just a loudmouthed posturing old bully counting on the odds that even somebody who dislikes bullies won’t punch an 81-year-old man in the chops.

  2. Some people have really intense touch issues. I HATE being touched by someone I don’t know or trust to the point I will actually put money down on the counter at a store for the cashier to pick up rather than touch them. So it is reasonable that someone could react that way.

    Well, unless he actually killed someone. That’s not reasonable at all.

  3. Young: “Sure. The last guy to touch me ended up dead. Cancer.”

  4. That he might not like to be touched is understandable to a point. I want to know about somebody ending up dead. Did that really happen? There should be public records.

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