Senate

Dem senator: Reid’s rhetoric on Trump an ‘absolute embarrassment’

by Jordain Carney - 11/11/16 7:51 PM ET

Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) is breaking with outgoing Minority Leader Harry Reid’s sharply worded rhetoric about Donald Trump’s White House win.

“Senator Harry Reid’s statement today attacking President-elect Trump is wrong!” Manchin said in a statement Friday. “It is an absolute embarrassment to the Senate as an institution, our Democratic party, and the nation. I want to be very clear, he does not speak for me.”

{mosads}Reid called the president-elect “a sexual predator who lost the popular vote” and argued his win bolsters hate groups and terrorists.

Manchin said Friday that Reid’s comments undercut the common ground lawmakers should be trying to find after the election. Many Democrats, including Manchin, are offering Trump a tentative olive branch.

“Senator Reid’s words needlessly feed the very divisiveness that is tearing this country apart,” he said. “Unfortunately, there are some who forget that at times like these it is wrong to put party and politics above our country.”

Adam Jentleson, a spokesman for Reid, reacted to Manchin’s statement on Friday evening, noting “the games people play…”

The games people play… https://t.co/9fWb30Rgyj

— Adam Jentleson (@AJentleson) November 12, 2016

Manchin is one of a handful of Democrats who face potentially tough reelection bids in red states in 2018. Trump steamrolled Clinton in West Virginia, carrying the state by more than 40 percentage points.

Manchin previously criticized Reid last year, saying his leadership when Democrats controlled the Senate didn’t work.

The West Virginia senator garnered speculation earlier this week that he could flip parties if the Senate split 50-50. However, he quickly refuted the reports from NBC News and Fox News, telling the Associated Press “I’m a born-in-the wool [West Virginia] Democrat. I don’t know where they’re getting that crap from.”