Senate

Reid: McConnell leading GOP toward Trump

by Jordain Carney - 03/09/16 10:53 AM ET

Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) is slamming Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, suggesting the Kentucky Republican is leading his party toward GOP presidential front-runner Donald Trump.

“As each day passes, the Republican leader continues to transform his caucus into the party of Donald Trump,” Reid said Wednesday. “This is a path the Republican leader has chosen for his party, a path of demagoguery and lapsed constitutional duties, a path he forged which led to the rise of Donald Trump.”

{mosads}Reid’s comments are his latest in a series of daily rhetorical attacks against McConnell and other top Republican lawmakers for refusing to give President Obama’s forthcoming Supreme Court pick a hearing or a vote.

Reid on Wednesday chastised McConnell, suggesting that the Kentucky Republican is refusing to cut ties with Trump and that “all he cares about is appeasing Trump’s lead in the party … and Trump’s radical followers.”

While McConnell has distanced himself from some of Trump’s proposals, he’s also been careful to not weigh into the presidential fight or comments from Trump and other candidates.

Asked Tuesday if senators could be “good” Republicans without supporting the nominee, McConnell reiterated his months-long stance that he will support the eventual GOP nominee.

Reid on Wednesday also doubled down on his criticism of Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) after the Senate’s No. 2 Republican suggested that Obama’s pick to replace the late Justice Antonin Scalia would be treated like a “piñata.”

“That’s nothing more than a thinly veiled threat,” Reid said, noting that piñatas get “smashed repeatedly with a baseball bat.”

Cornyn on Tuesday defended comments made earlier this week, saying he wouldn’t be “preached to” by Reid and other Democrats after they triggered the “nuclear” option in 2013 and allowed many judicial nominations to clear the Senate with a simple majority.

Tags Donald Trump Harry Reid John Cornyn Mitch McConnell