Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) today recalled “the good old days” when Donald Trump “did a fundraiser or two for me.”
Reid was asked outside a closed policy luncheon on Capitol Hill today about Trump’s compliments.
“I’ve always had a good relationship with Nancy Pelosi. I’ve never had a problem. Reid will be gone,” Trump told MSNBC yesterday, in reference to the Nevada senator’s impending retirement. “I always had a decent relationship with Reid, although lately, obviosuly, I haven’t been dealing with him so he’ll actually use my name as the ultimate — you know, as the ultimate of the billionaires in terms of, you know, people you don’t want.”
“But I always had a great relationship with Harry Reid,” Trump continued. “And frankly, if I weren’t running for office I would be able to deal with her or Reid or anybody. But I think I’d be able to get along very well with Nancy Pelosi and just about everybody. Hey, look, I think I’ll be able to get along well with Chuck Schumer. I was always very good with Schumer. I was close to Schumer in many ways.”
Since Trump began his presidential run, Reid has slammed many of the real-estate mogul’s statements on topics like immigration and Muslims from the Senate floor.
Today, Reid noted, “We’ve gotten along fine.”
“That was before he was running for president. I’m — with that bunch of people running, I’m kind of pulling for him,” he added.
Sens. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) and Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) chuckled in the background, with Durbin telling Schumer, “He’s a New Yorker!”
Later, Reid said, “All you folks should understand that I was just trying to be funny with Donald Trump, and obviously wasn’t too funny.”
“Schumer kicked me in the back of the leg,” Reid noted, as Schumer added, “And a few other places.”
“A few other places little higher than the leg,” Reid quipped. “I am watching with pleasure the Republicans fumbling around. It is a cadre of people who are really a mismatch for president of the United States.”
Reid added that this campaign cycle “has made a mockery of our Republican Party.”
He promised another floor speech about the GOP content “in the next day or two.”
“I had my staff go back and look at their — what they said about national security. I mean, it is enough to frighten you, as to what they’ve said about national security — carpet bombing and all this other stuff,” Reid said.
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