Reid’s move provoked some of the most personal attacks two Senate leaders have leveled against another in decades; Reid described McConnell as untrustworthy, while McConnell countered that the Nevada Democrat would go down in history as the worst Senate leader ever.  The theatrics reached a new crescendo Thursday when Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) confronted each other over Reid’s effort to change the filibuster rules in ways that would strip the GOP’s ability to block confirmation of executive branch nominees and that could ultimately weaken the minority party’s ability to slow the majority agenda. MCCONNELL - 'I HOPE WE'LL COME TO OUR SENSES': "We have an opportunity to pull back from the brink in this joint meeting that we're going to have of all senators in the old senate chamber Monday night," Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said on NBC's "Meet the Press." “Come on down, I hope you spend it all down there.” 
 
 Reid’s curt response: I know nothing about super PACs. We have never changed the rules of the Senate by breaking the rules of the senate in order to diminish the voices of individual senators. In 2005, then Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., threatened to invoke the "nuclear option" against Democrats filibustering President George W. Bush's judicial nominees. “They obviously disagree on many issues, but I have never heard Sen. Reid speak so personally ill about Sen. McConnell in the fashion that Sen. McConnell has towards Sen. Reid.” 
 
 A McConnell spokesman fired back. During the past two years, Reid had headed off a push by more junior Democrats to dramatically weaken the filibuster, opting instead to cut bipartisan deals with McConnell without invoking the nuclear option. If Reid deploys the “nuclear option” as early as Tuesday — in which senators would change the filibuster rules by a simple majority instead of 67 votes — gridlock in the Senate could worsen with major budget fights ahead in the fall and a slew of presidential nominees expected to hit the Senate floor in the coming months. Saturday was Kornheiser's 65th birthday, as was mentioned on the ESPN show Friday.
– Harry Reid and Mitch McConnell have spent a combined 60 years in the Senate, and they've generally had an amicable relationship—but no more. Sticking points include the Democrats' attempt to oust McConnell in 2014; a super PAC led by former Reid aides is working against the minority leader in Kentucky, prompting some snarky comments from McConnell. ("Come on down. I hope you spend it all down there.”) Meanwhile, each party leader thinks his opponent is trampling Senate tradition, write Manu Raju and John Bresnahan at Politico. They say the powerful duo's relationship has degenerated into "name-calling, finger-pointing and mutual distrust." ABC's political blog the Note says the Senate is at a "boiling point." Tomorrow, Reid could turn to the "nuclear option," altering filibuster rules through a simple majority. McConnell said that would make Reid the "worst" majority leader "ever," and his team tweeted a Reid gravestone that says "Killed the Senate." Reid, meanwhile, has been frustrated by what he sees as McConnell's excessive use of the filibuster and delays of Senate affairs. It's all a big shift in an upper chamber that used to be seen as "the chummiest club in America," writes Paul Kane in the Washington Post. "The only way you get something is to become obnoxious," says Democrat Mary Landrieu. "We have turned from a Senate to a theater."