WASHINGTON ― Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) has taken to launching near daily tirades against Donald Trump, doing so almost every time that the Senate opens for business.
On Monday, Reid added a fresh miscreant: the media.
Reporters, Reid explained, are not sufficiently bold or accurate in describing Trump. That’s because they don’t call him a racist.
“Virtually every time Donald Trump says or does something discriminatory ― and that’s often ― the media relies upon a catalog of buzzwords to describe his actions,” Reid said. “The press uses words like hateful, intolerant, bigot, extremist, and prejudice to name but a few. Yet there’s always one word that many of the press conspicuously avoid: racist. They never label Trump as a racist. But he is a racist. Donald Trump is a racist.”
Reid went on to point out numerous race-related cases and comments from Trump’s distant and recent past, from housing discrimination suits in the 1970s to Trump’s descriptions of various minority groups during the current campaign.
He also chided Republicans such as House Speaker Paul Ryan (Wis.) for failing to denounce Trump as a racist, even after Ryan said Trump’s claim that an American judge of Mexican heritage could not treat him fairly was a “textbook” example of racism.
“Republicans are normalizing this racist behavior,” Reid said Monday, before getting back to the press.
“Those who refuse to denounce Donald Trump’s actions as racism are complicit in propagating and normalizing his hate,” Reid said. “It’s time for Republicans to stop closing their eyes to Donald Trump’s racism, and it’s time for reporters and journalists to be honest with the American people. They owe America the truth. Through his words and deeds, Donald Trump is a racist.”
Reid did appear to let The Huffington Post off the hook, though:
Trump has exhibited racism in words and actions. Discriminated against blacks, vilified Muslims, hated on Hispanics. https://t.co/iuD0y8Od7r
— Senator Harry Reid (@SenatorReid) September 26, 2016