"There were tens of them here yesterday. That’s a chosen word, tens of them."

No more than a couple hundred activists showed up for the Washington demonstration, many fewer than past Tea Party rallies in the nation’s capital.

“There were tens of them here yesterday. That’s a chosen word, tens of them,” Reid said on a conference call with reporters.

Reid and his fellow Senate Democrats have repeatedly taken aim at the Tea Party and conservative freshman House Republicans, saying they are rooting for a government shutdown amid negotiations over a proposal to fund the government through the end of the fiscal year.