During a closed door meeting of the progressive caucus on Capitol Hill, former House member and Florida Senate candidate Alan Grayson burst into the room and confronted Minority Leader Harry Reid.

Reid had issued a statement last month disparging Grayson, all but calling him a crook for using his House seat to promote his hedge fund. This led to a confrontation unusual in political circles.

The Hill

"Shame on you. It’s not true,” Grayson said, according to sources in the room. 

“It is true, and I want you to lose,” Reid fired back.

Grayson’s confrontational approach was derided by Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.), the leader of the CPC. 

“Why are you doing that?” Ellison asked, according to sources in the room. “This is so stupid.”  

Another source said other CPC members shared Ellison’s sentiments. 

“All the members were appalled” by Grayson’s behavior, the source said. “It was embarrassing for him and embarrassing for us that he behaved that way.”

Grayson, a liberal firebrand, is embroiled in a primary battle against Rep. Patrick Murphy (D-Fla.) for the swing seat soon to be vacated by Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), who had vied for the White House before bowing out of the race in March. Reid has endorsed Murphy in the contest.

Reid’s office issued a statement after the meeting confirming the confrontation, saying the Democratic leader “was honored” to address the CPC but that Grayson “decided to be disruptive, to the embarrassment of his fellow colleagues.”

“Senator Reid took the opportunity to express his low opinion of Congressman Grayson to his face and remind him that the reason Senator Reid has said that Grayson is under ethics investigation and appears to be running a Cayman Islands hedge fund from his Congressional office in order to line his own pockets is because these things are true, as established by seventy-four pages worth of evidence from the Congressional Ethics Committee,” the statement said.

Grayson — who has dismissed the ethics complaint as “frivolous” and “politically motivated” — defended his conduct at the meeting, saying his motive was “very simple.” 

“I wanted to find out why Harry Reid lied about me a couple of months ago, when he smeared me. ... I wanted to try to get to the bottom of it,” Grayson told reporters. “What he said was profoundly untrue, and even allowing for the fact that I am the anti-establishment candidate.

Calling Grayson a "liberal firebrand" is inaccurate. He's a bomb throwing radical who famously said on the House floor during the Obamacare debate that the Republican health care plan was for old people to "die quickly." His bizarre behavior in and out of Congress has people questioning his mental health.

It isn't that Reid is upset at Grayson's money making schemes as much as he knows Grayson would lose in November to just about any Republican. As for the Democratic primary, Rep. Patrick Murphy holds a comfortable lead over Grayson in the Democratic primary so Reid may, indeed, get his wish.