Former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) did not mince words about President Donald Trump, declaring him “without question the worst president we’ve ever had” in a rare interview published Wednesday, his first since being diagnosed with pancreatic cancer last year.
“We’ve had some bad ones, and there’s not even a close second to him,” Reid told The New York Times Magazine’s Mark Leibovich. “He’ll lie. He’ll cheat. You can’t reason with him.”
Reid also questioned why former attorney general Jeff Sessions — his Senate colleague — and former White House chief of staff John Kelly did not leave Trump’s administration sooner.
“Why in the hell didn’t Sessions leave?” he said. “Same with Kelly,” referring to the departing chief of staff. “I’d say, ‘Go screw yourself.’ I could not look my children in the eye.”
Reid has not held back when it comes to Trump, repeatedly warning about him before retiring from the Senate in 2017.
In October, after Trump cited the former senator in a tweet justifying his suggestion that the U.S. consider ending birthright citizenship, Reid took a swipe at Trump.
“In 1993, around the time Donald Trump was gobbling up tax-free inheritance money from his wealthy father and driving several companies into bankruptcy, I made a mistake,” Reid said in a statement, explaining that while decades ago he supported ending birthright citizenship, he later reversed his position on the issue.
Read the full New York Times profile here.