Harry Reid on Trump's 2020 odds: 'I'm pretty damn worried' [View all]

LAS VEGAS — Harry Reid has spent decades building a reputation as a stone cold pragmatist and a master political tactician. Which is why he barely hesitated when asked about the possibility that Donald Trump—a man he fears and despises—could win re-election in 2020.

“I'm pretty damn worried,” the former Senate majority leader said in an interview with The Daily Beast last week, a day before deadly shootings in El Paso and Dayton. “Anybody that thinks he's going to be beaten easily is wrong. As sad as it is. As hard as it is for me to say this: don’t count that man out.”

The former majority leader no longer finds himself deep in the political trenches, though it’s hard not to see his nostalgia for them. Sitting in his office at the UNLV law school, he held court on a wide variety of topics, showcasing the type of frank, acid-tongued assessments that were a hallmark of his time in Washington, D.C. His sharpest quips were saved for the president, who—over the course of a 40-minute interview—he called a racist and demoguage and who he insinuated may not be mentally all there.

“He's carried the term bullshit as far as it will go,” Reid said at one point, offering the slightest chuckle in appreciation of the line he’d just delivered. “I've never known a human being in a position of prominence that you can do nothing to damage his ego in any way. It is absolutely unbelievable.”

Read more: https://www.thedailybeast.com/harry-reid-on-trumps-2020-odds-im-pretty-damn-worried