Outgoing Minority Leader Harry Reid on Thursday accused President-elect Trump of doing nothing to heal the wounds critics say he inflicted during the campaign.
“Two days ago I came here and called upon our president-elect to rise to the dignity of his office,” Reid said in remarks on the Senate floor Thursday. “I called upon Donald Trump to take responsibility for his rhetoric and his actions, to work to heal the wounds that he created. Our president-elect has chosen to do none of those things.”
The retiring Nevada Democrat, known for his blunt rhetoric and polarizing tactics, went silent for two days after Trump’s election last week but emerged on the attack a week ago with a series of blistering attacks on the president-elect, including his decision to tap former Breitbart News CEO Steve Bannon as his chief strategist.
Over the past few days, Reid and his spokesman have each issued scathing statements, accusing Bannon of fueling white supremacist, anti-Semitic messages in Breitbart’s stories.
Reid, who Wednesday admitted that he was having a hard time getting over Trump’s decisive victory at the polls, argued that hate crimes are on the rise and the president-elect has done nothing to try to stop them.
The liberal-leaning Southern Poverty Law Center on Monday reported that 315 hate crimes have occurred since the election. The same group, on Wednesday, said the number had jumped to 437 incidents.
“That’s a 40 percent increase in only two days. That’s startling,” Reid remarked.
“There’s only one person who can bring a stop to that quickly, and that’s the president-elect,” Reid continued. “Our nation is looking at Donald Trump to do something. For the sake of the American people, I hope he will.”
Reid did not mention Trump’s unequivocal message to the perpetrators of these reported incidents to “stop it” during a 60 Minutes interview that aired Sunday night.
“I am so saddened to hear that,” Trump told CBS’ Lesley Stahl when she said Latinos and Muslims are facing harassment. “And I say, ‘Stop it.’ If it — if it helps, I will say this, and I will say right to the cameras: ‘Stop it.'”
Among other examples of crimes against minorities being perpetrated in Trump’s name, Reid cited an incident in Michigan in which a Latino family woke to find that someone had used boxes to form a wall in their driveway and left “vulgar” graffiti that “denigrated Mexican Americans and praised Donald Trump for ‘taking back America.'” He entered into the Senate’s record a 17-page document citing hundreds of “the same kinds” of incidents occurring across the country.
“These are sickening acts of hate, prejudice, and simple meanness. And they need to be stopped,” he said.
