Will this presidential election be the most important in American history?
Senate Minority Leader [score]Harry Reid[/score] (D-NV) is retiring, and his opinion on the future of American politics -especially the Trump Administration- might surprise you.
Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid will give his farewell address Thursday on the Senate floor. The Nevada Democrat has served in Congress for 30 years, and as his party’s leader in the Senate for 12. Reid tells Morning Edition’s Rachel Martin that he — and many other Americans — are still anxious about the incoming Trump administration, but he sees reasons for optimism as well.
“I’ve learned to accept the Trump election,” he says.
On how his assessment of President-elect Donald Trump has changed
… I have to say this — he’s not as bad as I thought he would be. … We heard from Trump that one of the first things he was going to do is repeal [the Dreamers] executive order. In an interview he had with Time magazine in the last day or two, he said, “Nah, I’m not going to do that” — those young people deserve to stay here. He’s not going to prosecute Hillary Clinton criminally, as he said he would do. Obviously he didn’t believe in all of the stuff he said — which is a step in the right direction. …
Ironically, Sen. Reid’s steamrolling procedural tactics paved the way for Donald Trump’s policy agenda.
As the Wall Street Journal explained:
Mr. Reid will be gone with the current Congress but Republicans may miss him considering all he has done to help them. By killing the filibuster for nominees, he has made it easier for Mr. Trump to get his nominees confirmed and fill Antonin Scalia’s seat on the Supreme Court. By stretching the rules for budget reconciliation, he has set a precedent for Republicans to repeal much of ObamaCare by ducking a filibuster.
And by blocking vote after vote as Senate Majority Leader, Mr. Reid made it impossible for Democrats in swing states to differentiate themselves from President Obama and paved the way for a GOP Senate in 2014. A Republican Congress can now go far to repealing much of Mr. Obama’s legacy.
Senator Reid may not believe Donald Trump will keep the promises he made on the campaign trail, but then again, he didn’t believe Donald Trump could win the election in the first place.
Don’t let the door hit you on the way out, Senator Reid!