Former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) has not remained silent since leaving the powerful post he held, including advising several of the 2020 Democrat presidential hopefuls, writing op-eds, and granting interviews with the media.
In the New York Times, he wrote about getting rid of the filibuster rule in the Senate that he helped install, claiming in today’s political climate nothing can get done. Reid said the filibuster helped him advance President Barack Obama’s agenda.
But in an interview with National Public Radio (NPR) Reid said that the most pressing issue the country faces, and that Congress needs to address, is climate change.
“I think we need to take a very close look at getting rid of the filibuster, period,” Reid said, which led to NPR’s host of Weekend Edition Sunday to ask, “Doesn’t that create a situation where one party gets to railroad the other party depending on who is in charge of that upper chamber?”
Reid said that without the filibuster a majority, instead of 60 votes, could make things happen.
“It’s important, because let’s take some major issues the country faces,” Reid said. “No issue in my mind is more important than climate change.”
“It is devastating our world,” Reid said. “The United States must be a leader in this.”
“But with Trump and basically Republicans saying that climate change doesn’t exist, we’re getting nothing done, I mean nothing, we don’t have a lot of time to spare,” Reid said.
The introduction of Reid’s profile isn’t completely flattering. According to NPR:
He had a reputation for being a tough politician who did what was necessary to get what he thought needed to be done, done. Even if sometimes that meant calling his opponents names, changing rules or, pushing the narrative that Mitt Romney didn’t pay taxes without furnishing any evidence to back up the claim.
Reid, 79, is undergoing chemotherapy for cancer but told NPR his prognosis is good.
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