Harry Reid just called Donald Trump a racist

By: Amber Phillips for the Washington Post.

Harry Reid has called Donald Trump’s policies racist. He’s called Donald Trump’s remarks racist. And on Monday — six hours before the first presidential debate — Reid called Donald Trump the person a racist too.

“Virtually every time Donald Trump says or does something discriminatory — and that’s often — the media has a bunch of words to describe his actions. The press uses words like “prejudice” and “bigot” to name but a few. Yet there’s always one word that many of the press conspicuously avoids: “Racist.” They never label Trump as a racist. But he is a racist. Donald Trump is a racist. Racist is a term I don’t throw around lightly. … We’ve all, with rare exception — I don’t know who it would be — but have said things that are not politically correct. But I don’t know of anyone that, when that happens, doesn’t acknowledge it and, if necessary, apologize quickly. But Donald Trump doesn’t believe the racist things he does and says are wrong. He says them with full intent to demean and denigrate. That’s who he is.”

Reid’s message was hard to miss. Out of the 11 sentences that we excerpted from the Nevada Democrat’s (much longer) speech, Reid said the word “racist” five times — all of it in the context of calling Trump one. And then he repeated his claim on Twitter, linking to a Huffington Post article declaring some of Trump’s comments “racist.”

This, perhaps, doesn’t come as a surprise. Reid has long been one of Trump’s most outspoken and colorful critics. In a speech in June, he blamed the Republican Party for creating the Trump phenomenon:

“For years, Senator McConnell and other Republican leaders embraced the darkest elements within their party. The Republican Party made anti-woman, anti-Latino, anti-Muslim, anti-immigrant, and anti-Obama policies the norm. Trump is the logical conclusion of what Republican leaders have been saying and doing for seven and a half years.”

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Reid is retiring at the end of this year after three decades in Congress, and the insults he hurls at Trump have become much more colorful of late. He recently called Trump a “con artist,” “a spoiled brat” and a “human leech.” Oh, and he body-shamed Trump at a news conference: “Take a look at this character that’s running for president. … He’s not slim and trim. He brags about eating fast food every day.” Several days ago he made an unsubstantiated claim that he knew why Trump wasn’t releasing his tax returns.

But Reid is far from the only person — on either side of the aisle — to criticize some of Trump’s remarks in the context of racism. After Trump said he didn’t think a federal judge could preside fairly over a Trump University lawsuit because of the judge’s “Mexican heritage,” House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) said Trump’s comments fit “the textbook definition of racism,” — a fact Reid cited Monday to bolster his point.

Still, this is the first time this year a high-profile U.S. political leader has flat out called the Republican presidential nominee racist. And that’s a notable moment. Reid is not just saying that something Trump said or a policy he championed is racist. Reid is saying the problem is the candidate himself.

Reid has found himself critiqued for his own language on race. In 2010, he apologized following revelations that during the 2008 campaign he had referred to Obama as “light-skinned” and as having “no Negro dialect.”

In an interview with CNN 10 days ago, Reid was offered the chance to call Trump a racist. At that point, he declined. “I don’t know,” he said in response to a question from CNN’s Manu Raju about whether Trump is a racist. “All you guys have a job to do. You make that decision. I’m not going to. I’m just telling you what he’s done and we’ve seen it. He’s a man of no morality.”