Former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) had some rather shocking statements about the Democratic Party’s increasingly left-wing platform in an interview with Vice.
The 79-year-old former senator, who served as Majority Leader from 2007 to 2015 and retired in 2017, explicitly criticized Medicare for All and the concept of decriminalizing illegal border crossings.
On the former, he said “of course it would be” a hindrance to the Democratic nominee in 2020, asking “how are you going to get it passed?” Reid instead voiced his support for simply “improving Obamacare,” which he says the American people “would appreciate” more than Medicare for All. On open borders, Reid bluntly said that “people want a fair immigration system. They don’t want an open-door invitation for everybody to come at once.”
These left-wing stances on health care and the border that Reid is criticizing are held by some of the race’s front runners, including Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Senator Bernie Sanders (D-Vt.). Senator Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) has expressed support in the past for abolishing private insurance, but has flip-flopped on that stance several times.
As the Vice article notes, Reid is still a very influential player in Nevada Democratic politics despite his retirement and declining health. The Nevada caucus is the third contest of the 2020 election cycle, after Iowa and New Hampshire, scheduled for February 22. In 2016, Nevada was one of the closest states in the general election, when Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.) narrowly defeated President Donald Trump by less than 3 percent.