FILE - In this Jan. 18, 2006 file photo, Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid of Nev., center, is joined by Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., left, and House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi of Calif., as he prepares to outline the Democrat agenda for reform in the wake of the scandal involving former lobbyist Jack Abramoff in Washington. In a White House statement released Saturday, Jan. 9, 2010, President Barack Obama said he accepted Reid's apology Saturday for comments he made about Obama's race during the 2008 presidential bid because "... I know what's in his heart." (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File)
Sen. Harry Reid said Tuesday he blames the rise of Donald Trump on the Republican Congress.
“The real destruction of the Republican party started when Obama was elected,” Reid said in an interview at his Reno office.
He said two days later, Republicans in Congress met and decided they would fight to make sure Obama wasn’t re-elected.
“They said they would oppose anything Obama tried to do,” he said.
He said they had a lot of success in blocking Obama, especially his nominations to courts and executive branch programs.
“We have Donald Trump because of what happened in Congress in the last eight years,” he said. “Now others have picked up on what they’ve done.”
He pointed to denying climate change, Obama wasn’t born in America, blocking immigration reform, trying to privatize Medicare and locking down the nomination process for judges and blocking raises to the minimum wage.
“They created Trump,” he said adding he has heard much of the things Trump has said from other members of Congress over the past eight years.
Reid also had few good things to say about Nevada Republican Senate Candidate Rep. Joe Heck.
“I have so much distaste for Donald Trump and Joe Heck,” he said.
He said Heck has described Social Security as “a Ponzi Scheme.”
He said Heck is now trying to portray himself as a moderate: “How do you get rid of his voting record, everything he tried to do.”
He warned not to listen to political polls, predicting Trump would lose to Hillary Clinton and Heck would lose to former Attorney General Catherine Cortez Masto.
He said Heck won’t win despite the millions the Koch brothers are pouring into the Senate race.
“The Koch brothers want to be the new moguls of America,” he said. “They want America to wind up like Russia where seven or eight families run the country.”
Clinton, he said, is a good presidential candidate who “has been preparing for this all her life.”
He said after naming a commission to investigate her emails, even the Republicans who ran the investigation had to admit there was nothing there.
Reid said the new attempt by Rep. John Shimkus, R-Illinois, to revive Yucca Mountain is just political theater, that most of the Republicans don’t want to go back through that.
“There are states that want it,” he said. “Give it to them.”
Reid along with President Obama and others will all be at the annual Tahoe Summit next weekend.
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