Former Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid, a notably fierce opponent of President George W. Bush during his time in office, says that compared with Donald Trump, Bush is the political equivalent of Babe Ruth — and that Trump couldn’t even “make the team.”
Reid, 79, told a CNN interviewer he wishes “every day” that Bush was president today.
“He and I had our differences,” Reid said, “but no one ever questioned his patriotism. Our battles were strictly political battles.”
In the interview at Reid’s office in a hotel on the Las Vegas Strip, Reid also discussed his ongoing bout with pancreatic cancer, saying doctors caught it early and after what CNN called “especially brutal” chemotherapy, it is now in remission.
“Since the 2016 presidential election, Reid has been colorful in criticizing Trump,” calling him “everything from a ‘con man’ to a ‘human leech’ to a ‘big fat guy,’” CNN said.
Asked if he had anything nice to say about Trump, Reid “pondered that question hard” and after a long pause, replied, “I just have trouble accepting him as a person, so frankly I don’t see anything he’s doing right.”
Reid counseled Democrats running for president in 2020 that they shouldn’t bother complaining about how bad Trump is, “they just need to talk about what’s good for the country.”
Reid said impeaching Trump would be “a waste of time” because Republicans controlling the Senate “are so afraid of Trump that they’re not going to get involved.”
CNN says Reid’s “wry sense of humor” remains intact: on his office wall, he “proudly displays a framed letter … that Trump wrote him in 2010 congratulating the Nevada senator for winning his tough re-election bid that year.
