Rep. Charlie Rangel (D-N.Y.) is no stranger to scandal and dealing with reporters chasing him relentlessly around Washington and New York. In fact, he’s a scandal survivor. So he feels Rep. Michael Grimm‘s (R-N.Y.) pain.
But only to a point, and then he smartly sides with Capitol Hill reporters.
“Well, I’m certain a lot of us may have thought that way sometimes, felt annoyed, felt embarrassed, felt your back’s against the wall, that you don’t have an adequate answer, felt ill-prepared and felt embarrassed and responded in an unprofessional way,” Rangel said on MSNBC this morning, in response to Grimm telling NY1 reporter Michael Scotto that he was going to throw him off a balcony and “break him in half” for straying from questions about the State of the Union. “This is not what happens. When you disagree with those people, they have a job to do, they’re supposed to ask the hard questions. Like Truman says, if the kitchen is too hot get the heck on out of it.”