After he told Glenn Beck hours earlier that he had “tickled [a congressional staffer] until he couldn’t breathe,” former Representative Eric Massa claimed to Larry King tonight that “it’s not true” that he groped staffers (“When four guys jump on you to wrestle you … anything can be called anything, Larry”). He reiterated the two main reasons for his departure on Live, citing his health and his conduct as a congressman.
The 30-minute interview took an uncomfortable turn though when King asked Massa point blank if he was gay, a question the “salty old sailor” refused to answer, claiming that King had “insulted every gay American by asking it.” Enduring the tense exchange is worth it, though, for King’s automatic, guttural “No!” response when Massa suggests King pose the question to “the ten thousand sailors [he] served with in the Navy.”
