Reid Relieved He Didn't Suffer Brain Damage in 'Freak Accident'

Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said his brain is learning to adjust to the injuries he suffered over the winter holiday break.

Reid still wear sunglasses around the Senate and has undergone surgery to repair a fractured eye socket.

“Things happen. This was a freak accident and I’m not blind in my right eye. But I’m so grateful that it didn’t do any damage to my brain, almost got smacked in the temple there,” Reid said of what he says was an accident with home workout equipment. He also suffered fractured ribs.

“And I’m — accepted where I am just and I look around, it’s easy to do. People have a few more problems than you have,” he told MSNBC. “The main problem of not being able to see out of one eye, the real problem it takes awhile for my brain to adjust. So I have trouble with depth perception.”

“But right now, I stumble a bit, once in a while. I’ll get over that. Your brain will adjust to that and I’ll be fine.”

Reid wants former Nevada Attorney General Catherine Cortez Masto to replace him in the Senate when he retires at the end of the 114th Congress.

“The Senate is a better place because of women. Men and women are different. I’m so impressed with how women appear to me to be more patient… I wish I could articulate the way I really feel about how much better the Senate is because of women,” he said.

“I’m so happy, gratified that during the time that I was majority leader and now the time I’m minority leader, that we have women who lead these committees. I mean, we had Feinstein, head of intelligence, Boxer, environment and public works, Patty Murray, budget, she’s going to labor HHS. Maria Cantwell, small business. On and on with these women who are just so dynamic and prior to Mikulski, and I can be here, they weren’t around.”

So in turn, Reid stressed, “the country is ready for a woman to be president of the United States and of course the Senate’s ready for a woman being — it’s just a question of time until they will replace Reid and Schumer, there will be leaders that come from the ranks of women who serve so adequately here in the Senate.”

Reid has endorsed Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) to take his spot as Senate Democratic leader.

Reid admitted that Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) recently told him on the Senate floor that he was going to “kick the s**t” out of him.

“And I said to him, John, if I were in your position, I would do the same thing. He said, you know, I felt so sentimental when I heard you say that. That’s what he said. John McCain and I are friends. I understand — we came to the House together. We came to the Senate together,” Reid said. “It’s how we talk to each other. I would like to be able to tell everybody here, my female colleagues haven’t said something comparable to me, but they have.”