Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) wasted little time Monday, ripping into presidential contender Donald Trump and other Republicans minutes after the Senate returned from a weeklong recess.
“Donald Trump is the natural evolution of a party that spent eight years honing a platform that is anti-immigrant and anti-woman, anti-Obama and anti-working people,” Reid said from the floor of the upper chamber. “He’s the nominee of the Republican Party.”
{mosads}Trump locked down his status as the party’s presumptive nominee last week when rivals Ted Cruz and John Kasich dropped out following Trump’s sweeping win in the Indiana primary.
The Senate’s Democratic leader, who is retiring at the end of his current term, is known for using the floor as a launching pad for rhetorical barbs.
He said Monday that Trump “has adopted the issues of the modern Republican Party” and charged that GOP lawmakers are “scrambling to get behind this hate-spieling nominee.”
“The Republican Party’s chickens have come home to roost in the form of Donald Trump,” Reid said.
The idea of Trump as the party’s standard-bearer has split congressional Republicans. Though Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said last week he would support Trump as the nominee, House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) is holding off.
Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) added Monday that he’s not ready to throw his support behind Trump yet, instead urging the presidential candidate to clarify his policies and work to unify the party.
Reid, hinting at the GOP division, said senators need to “stop waffling” on Trump.
“Not going to the convention doesn’t take away the fact that he’s the Republican nominee,” he said. “Republican senators need to say whether they’re going to vote for this guy.”
The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee separately sought to pressure vulnerable GOP incumbents and candidates to say whether they plan to meet with Trump.