Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) walked back his remark from earlier in the day that of the Obamacare “horror stories being told, all are untrue.”
“I can’t say that every one of the Koch Brothers ads are a lie but I’ll say this — the vast, vast majority of them are,” he said Wednesday on the Senate floor.
Then he threw the kitchen sink at billionaires Charles and David Koch, who are currently pushing one anti-Obamacare ad that strains the facts, calling them “un-American” and accusing them of “trying to buy America.”
“What is going on with these two brothers who made billions of dollars last year in an attempt to buy our democracy is does honest, deceptive, false and unfair. Just because you have huge amounts of money you should not be able to run these false, misleading ads by the hundreds of millions of dollars. They hide behind all kinds of entities,” Reid said. “It’s not just their front organization, Americans For Prosperity. But they give money to all kinds of organizations, lots of money. You see, when you make billions of dollars a year you can be as immoral and dishonest as your money will allow you to be. It’s too bad that they’re trying to buy America and it’s time that the American people spoke out against this terrible dishonesty of these two brothers, who are about as un-American as anyone that I can imagine.”
Update, 5:40 P.M.
A top spokesman for the Kochs fired back at Reid.
“Senator Harry Reid stood on the Senate floor today and attacked the character and integrity of every American who had the courage to share how they’re being hurt by the President’s health care law – some of whom are battling serious, life-threatening illnesses,” said Tim Phillips, the president of Americans For Prosperity, the Koch group that’s running the ad.
Phillips accused Reid of “declaring war on [Obamacare] victims” and “brushing these horror stories under the rug.”
Watch Reid’s remarks on the Senate floor below.
