Harry Reid isn't happy with Bernie: “If you want the two damn delegates, you can have them,”

Nowhere has the strain in the Democratic Party been more evident lately than in Mr. Sanders’s relationship with Mr. Reid. Few members of the Senate are closer to Mr. Sanders than Mr. Reid, who had tried to head off any confrontation by speaking personally with Mr. Sanders on Friday to stress the importance of not letting the state convention devolve into a messy fight over a handful of delegates.

“If you want the two damn delegates, you can have them,” Mr. Reid told Mr. Sanders, according to someone with firsthand knowledge of the discussions between the two senators. Though Mr. Reid has endorsed Mrs. Clinton, he has said that he believes Mr. Sanders has earned a right to remain in the race.

After the convention went awry, Mr. Reid and Mr. Sanders spoke again on Tuesday afternoon. Mr. Reid expressed dismay that Mr. Sanders’s supporters had acted so belligerently. A member of his own staff was at the convention and feared for her own safety, Mr. Reid said. He also said that the way Sanders supporters had been harassing Roberta Lange, the state party chairwoman — filling her voice mail with threatening, obscene messages and showing up at her Las Vegas restaurant in protest — was over the line.

Mr. Sanders said he agreed and believed that the violence should be condemned. But when he released his statement on Tuesday night, which made only a passing reference to the violence at the convention, a perplexed Mr. Reid told his staff that he thought the gesture was “silly” and beneath Mr. Sanders, according to the person who spoke with Mr. Reid.

The two senators have not spoken since.

Mr. Sanders appeared to be taken somewhat by surprise at the way the Nevada melee was being portrayed, and how negatively it was reflecting on his campaign.

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