Master of the Senate (with Harry Reid)

Air date: 2/7/19

Preet Bharara:

Senator Reid, thank you so much for being on the show. It’s a real honor for me.

Harry Reid:

I look forward to this. I know we haven’t met and had long conversations but, of course, we worked in the same building and we all had some influence of the senator from New York, Senator Schumer.

Preet Bharara:

We have.

Harry Reid:

So, I feel like I know you very, very well.

Preet Bharara:

It’s a real treat for me, given that 14 years ago, almost to the day, I started as a staffer on the Senate Judiciary Committee as chief counsel to Senator Schumer, and you were the Democratic Leader at the time. And it’s hard to forget the first time you sit in the leader’s office in the Capitol, and you were there and Senator Schumer and I think Senator Durbin and a couple of others talking about whatever issue of the day, and if you’re a young lawyer, sitting in a room like that for the first time, you kind of had to pinch yourself. So, it’s my honor.

Harry Reid:

I usually had with me, Durbin, Schumer and Murray.

Preet Bharara:

Right. Each of the senators often had one staff member and you had your chief counsel, often Ron Weich, who became very good friend of mine.

Harry Reid:

Dean of a law school now.

Preet Bharara:

And it seems like yesterday.

Harry Reid:

Anyways, I am so grateful to have the opportunity to be able to visit with you for a while. I’m ready to go.

Preet Bharara:

So, I’m going to start with something, a very difficult question. Are you ready?

Harry Reid:

You bet.

Preet Bharara:

What is the correct way to pronounce the name of your home state?

Harry Reid:

I know people get trouble because they say Nevada, but I always tell people don’t worry about it. A lawyer by name of Neil Galatz, was a trial lawyer. And he won millions and millions and millions of dollars talking to Nevada juries, and he never said anything other than Nevada. So my point is, it’s spelled N-E-V-A-D-A, it means snow-capped and it doesn’t matter how you pronounce it.

Preet Bharara:

But if you want it to be technically correct, you would go with Nevada.

Harry Reid:

Well, not technically correct, it’s just Nevadans like it better.

Preet Bharara:

Okay. And how are you?

Harry Reid:

I’m doing fine.

Preet Bharara:

Good. That’s excellent to hear. You’ve had a fascinating life. And not everyone may know your history and your early days and your youth, so I want to talk about that a little bit, your biography.

Harry Reid:

Sure.

Preet Bharara:

You wrote a book called The Good Fight, Hard Lessons from Searchlight to Washington. So, Searchlight, Nevada is your hometown. And you were born not into riches, were you?

Harry Reid:

No, not really. I wasn’t, no. But at the time growing up, I didn’t feel I was poor. It wasn’t until I was an adult. And my brother, who passed away at a very young age, his daughter was going through some pictures that her dad had, and some of them had me in them. And I looked at that picture, saw those pictures, I couldn’t believe I was raised in that.

Harry Reid:

I mean, I couldn’t believe, I repeat for the second time, what a squatter was. I mean, when I looked at that house where I was raised, the wooden steps going up to the front door, it was pretty bad. And I didn’t realize it until I was adult. Maybe I didn’t have it so good as a kid.

Preet Bharara:

And what did your father do?

Harry Reid:

My dad was a hard rock miner. But by the time, during World War II, I was a little, tiny boy, mining ceased because of the war. And then after that, there was a much… The number one business in Searchlight as I was growing up was prostitution. There were as many as 13 brothels at one time. It’s a politically incorrect word today. They were all referred to as “the girls.” They were prostitutes. And that’s what Searchlight was all about. On payday for the military bases, Searchlight was very, very busy. Cars coming over, and some in uniform. Anyway, so that’s-

Preet Bharara:

What did you make of that as a kid?

Harry Reid:

It meant nothing to me at the time. I thought every place had bordellos. I didn’t know. But I have one distinction that no one who’s ever held a seat in the United States Senate or by any other political seat can claim, I learned to swim in a whorehouse swimming pool. The man, his name was Willie Martello. He had the biggest bordello in Searchlight, and he built the only swimming pool in Searchlight. It was very, very nice, and that’s where I learned to swim.

Preet Bharara:

And how about your mother, what did she do?

Harry Reid:

My mother took in wash. It’s easy to forget whose wash she did. She did work for the dealers and some of the ladies of the evening.

Preet Bharara:

Do you ever wonder if your political view and/or your career might have been different had you been born into wealth?

Harry Reid:

For me, being a person who loved the labor unions, love the fact that people need to organize, that was just who I was. So, I’ve always identified with that part of my existence rather than now. I lived in the Ritz Hotel in Washington. I was always very happy that I could tell people that I had some money because I was raised with nothing and I was so fortunate.

Harry Reid:

I was a brand-new lawyer. And one of the very prominent lawyers in the history of Nevada was a guy by the name of Louis Wiener. He walked in holding court, so to speak, and he looked at me as a new guy and he said, “Listen, young man, here’s what I’m telling you what you should do, is invest only in undeveloped real estate.” These are his exact words, “You can piss on it as much as you want, it doesn’t matter because all you have to do is pay the taxes.”

Harry Reid:

And I took him at his word. And so, I started investing $50 a month, and I was able to put my kids all through school, all five of them. I feel very fortunate.

Preet Bharara:

You did not grow up in a religious household. You once said, it wasn’t the case that there was just a little bit of religion, there was not even 10% religion. It just wasn’t part of life. But then, you found religion in college.

Harry Reid:

I left home when I was about 13 and lived with people. And I had the good fortune of being befriended by some very nice people. I was a kid from Searchlight that had clothes ordered from a catalog at Sears and Roebuck, but people were nice to me. The people nicest to me were some of the big shots in the school, and they were Mormons, most of them.

Harry Reid:

I always say the most important election I ever had was a junior in high school. I was elected Junior Class Treasurer. Now, that may sound like a bunch of nothing to people listening here. But for me, this young kid from Searchlight, I felt that I had been finally accepted by my peers. They elected me to an office. That was a milestone in my life and with my background.

Preet Bharara:

How did you win?

Harry Reid:

All my political success has never been based on my good looks. My oratory beats the hell out of me, but I won.

Preet Bharara:

And in your transition to being a religious person and converting to Mormonism?

Harry Reid:

Well, when I was a freshman in high school, this Mormon boy said, “Why don’t you come with me in these early morning meetings? It’s called seminary.” He said that a lot of good-looking girls there, and only last less than an hour. So, I went with him.

Harry Reid:

So anyway, I went away to college, Utah State University. Landra and I married between my sophomore and junior in college and we found the church to be something that was good for us. I’m satisfied with the religious change that I made as a young man.

Preet Bharara:

Another thing happened as well and maybe this was the result of your successful candidacy in high school politics, you entered politics pretty young.

Harry Reid:

As soon as I got out of law school, I was appointed, not elected job, appointed city attorney for the city of Henderson, Nevada. Two years out that job, some people came to me and they said down, “County hospital is corrupt. We want you to run.” So, I won the election.

Harry Reid:

And then two years later, I decided to run for the Assembly. At that time, they elected 18 in the primary. Can you imagine that? We haven’t had reapportionment.

Preet Bharara:

Sounds like a Democratic vote race for 20.

Harry Reid:

Yeah, that’s right on the Democratic side. So, I want… And you’re right, I was young and a lot of ideas. I introduced first pollution legislation, first gun control legislation, which wanted me a lot during my career, but I did it. And then, I decided, “Okay, I’ll run for lieutenant governor.” I was elected lieutenant governor. I was very, very young.

Preet Bharara:

You were 30, right?

Harry Reid:

Yeah, that’s right. I was then appointed with my friend, Mike O’Callaghan, who was my high school teacher and my mentor. He appointed me to the Nevada State Gaming Commission, which was a very, very interesting time.

Preet Bharara:

Can I ask you a couple of questions about that early light, because you have said that one of the things that got you into politics was other people’s rudeness?

Harry Reid:

Yeah, that’s true. That’s why I ran for the hospital board.

Preet Bharara:

So, you go into hospital and they’re just obnoxious to you, and they said-

Harry Reid:

No, I went in there… I was representing a guy by the name of Dr. Thomas Newman. They had some administrative thing against him. And I went in there with a senior partner, my little law firm. This is actually what Dr. Madsen said, the guy I eventually beat, he said, “We don’t need lawyers here. We do what we want to do.” And I said to myself that time, “I don’t know what I can do, but maybe someday I’ll get even with this guy,” and I got even with him. I beat him.

Preet Bharara:

How important is it to you to get even with people?

Harry Reid:

Well, I always think, “If you pick a fight, you should win it.” So, that’s why… I thought that was important. He picked the fight, he lost it. I won it.

Preet Bharara:

So, you became the head of the Gaming Commission this time period. This is in the late 70s, right, Senator?

Harry Reid:

Yeah, that’s right. ’77 I became chairman of the Gaming Commission. ’77 to ’81.

Preet Bharara:

My favorite story from that time, and you’ll appreciate why this is my favorite story given what I used to do for a living, which is prosecute people, in particular public corruption. So, you’re the head of the Gaming Commission. There’s a lot of corruption going around. And there’s a gentleman who offered you a bribe and rather than accept it, you did something that a lot of people we wish would do more of, you went to the FBI.

Harry Reid:

Let me tell you what happened there. I was at home and I got a call from a guy, I name it Daley, and he was a political groupie. Frankly, I didn’t have much respect for him. But he called me and I just didn’t think the call sounded right. Arrangements were made that I would accept this bribe. The keyword was, “Is this the money?” When I said that, the FBI was to come in and arrest everybody. But I said, “Is this the money?” and these bandits had locked the door behind them. Finally, they got around and opened the door and the FBI came in.

Harry Reid:

And I was so mad at that time. Now, this is not anything that I’m especially proud of, but I did it. I put a chokehold on that guy that tried to bribe me. They had to pry me off him. His face was turning blue. I was so mad that they thought they could bribe me. And they all were convicted.

Preet Bharara:

Part of the reason I love the story, as I mentioned, is we did a lot of public corruption prosecutions, in particular people in the legislature in New York, and I can’t tell you one time that I’m aware that someone was offered a bribe and got angry, so angry that they tried to choke the briber because it was an insult to the elected person’s integrity. So, I don’t condone the chokehold, but I appreciate the impulse which is in short supply today.

Harry Reid:

Well, you’d be surprised how a chokehold gets somebody’s attention really fast.

Preet Bharara:

I’m sure it did. To those listening at home, we don’t advise you to choke people who try to bribe you, but we do appreciate the indignation you feel when someone thinks that they can buy you off. And people of integrity should always feel that indignation, and we don’t see it often enough in fact.

Preet Bharara:

Let’s fast forward a little bit to when you became a U.S. Senator. How did you feel compared to winning student body president when you were in high school?

Harry Reid:

My joy came when I was elected to the House of Representatives. I spent two terms in the house. But for me, having been at capital placement, it was wonderful for me to be in the house, office, buildings that I patrolled. I was gratified. It was so much fun. I always remember those days on the Foreign Relations Committee, Science and Technology. That’s where I met my friend for life, Al Gore.

Harry Reid:

When I was elected to the Senate, having lost a race a number of years before that, my 524 votes, it was of course remarkable for me, and then serve all those years I did in the Senate. As I look back, it was amazing that someone with my background and my abilities could serve, at that time, 30 years in the Senate and Foreign House.

Preet Bharara:

What’s the difference between serving in the House of Representatives versus the Senate? Does it feel like a promotion like you’re going to the big leagues, or does it seem like just it’s a smaller group of people?

Harry Reid:

Yes, but I feel anyone that has served in the House immediately becomes a better senator when they’re elected because you understand the House. The House is not that easy to understand. There’s 435 members, your friendships in the House are developed with your committees. In the Senate, that’s just the opposite. Certainly, you do a lot of stuff with committees, but your actual work in the Senate, a lot of it takes place on the Senate floor because there’s only 99 other people.

Preet Bharara:

Do you think members of the House become better friends with each other than members of the Senate?

Harry Reid:

No, I think it’s about the same in the House. I served there only four years, but the friends I made there were no less important to me than those in the Senate.

Preet Bharara:

Years into his time in the Senate, my former boss and your former colleague, Senator Schumer, when he worked out in the morning, he didn’t work out in the Senate gym. As people may know, he worked out in the House gym.

Harry Reid:

Chuck Schumer and I have a great relationship and I think it’s important you know him well, and you will appreciate this perhaps more than your listeners, but maybe not. When I was elected the leader, I remember that came quite surprisingly because no one thought Daschle would be beaten. So I ran for Leader and was elected unanimously. I knew that I could not do a good job unless I had some help. And who could be more help than anybody? Chuck Schumer.

Preet Bharara:

That’s what I was going to guess.

Harry Reid:

Now, Chuck and I, we knew each other but just we weren’t pals or anything like that. So, I called in my office, I said, “Chuck, here’s what I want you to do. I want you to be head of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.” That’s the fundraising arm of the Senate and that’s where the recruitment takes place.

Preet Bharara:

That was at the beginning of 2005, right?

Harry Reid:

Yes.

Preet Bharara:

Is it important to work with people and build teams where the members of the team have different personalities?

Harry Reid:

That’s, again, where Schumer came in. I had Durbin, my Whip, Schumer, head of the Caucus, and Patty Murray, the Secretary of the Caucus. But I had Durbin, Schumer, and Murray come to my office sometimes four or five times a day because I wanted them to know what I was doing. I wanted their input and what I could do to improve it.

Preet Bharara:

People may not realize this, but I remember working on judiciary issues for Senator Schumer and when I was spending time with him, you and he would speak I think sometimes 10, in person maybe four or five times a day on busy days, but sometimes you guys would talk 10, 11, 12 times starting in the early morning and ending into the evening.

Harry Reid:

Landra, my wife, and Iris, his wife, used to joke that we spent far more time together than we did with him. And the sad story, it’s probably true.

Preet Bharara:

I remember being in meetings, talking about a judicial nomination or a crime bill or something in the senator’s office, and in the course of one meeting, there might be several phone calls between… He would stop in the middle of a meeting and realize that he wanted to go over something with you, and the meeting would stop and the two of you would discuss.

Harry Reid:

Well, my theory of this is I think I’m right. My mentor, I’ve already indicated was Mike O’Callaghan, and he said, “Listen, you can buy anything you want except one thing, loyalty. You have to earn that.” And I’ve always believed that, and that’s what I’ve set out to do.

Preet Bharara:

So, how does a leader of a caucus, whether in the minority or the majority, how do you keep unity in the caucus?

Harry Reid:

I had my three leaders and I always had their support. How did I keep peace in the caucus? By their knowing what we were doing. Claire McCaskill, she got beat this last time. She was a wonderful senator. But somebody was interviewing her. She [inaudible 00:35:20] once told, “I wasn’t going to support him,” and what did I say to her? I said, “Claire, I appreciate that very much. You’re at least honest. Most people don’t have the nerve to come and tell me that.” That’s how I looked at things. If someone didn’t like what I was doing, tell me what I’m doing wrong. We’ll see if we can do that.

Preet Bharara:

You talked about the friends you made and it’s nice to hear that because I guess one question people who have never served in the Congress is, do people really form genuine friendships or is everyone always looking over their shoulder?

Harry Reid:

Dick Durbin, Chuck Schumer, Patty Murray, those three people will be in my heart forever, but there are others. Pat Leahy, who’s still serving the Senate. He’s approaching 80 years old and how old is he for sure. Barbara Boxer, she and I always refer to her as my sister. I didn’t have brothers. And one time, I wrote her letter and put a P.S. on it, “You’re the sister I never had.” We still taught. So, I made friendships for life at the senators that I’ve worked with.

Preet Bharara:

What about friendships across the aisle? Do those things happen?

Harry Reid:

Yes, of course. Richard Shelby, he and I still talk, and I served… We had offices next door to each other in the House, when I served in the House. I thank the world of him. I could go lots and lots. McConnell, I have a lot of disagreements with Mitch and he knows that. But Mitch is my friend. I had lots of friends on the Republican side.

Preet Bharara:

I just want to, before we get to the current day, talk about something that was a big deal in my life as a staffer. So, you become the Democratic Leader in ’05 and there’s an election in ’06. And the Democrats are 10 seats down, I think it was 55-45, if I remember correctly. Not many people have predicted that the Democrats would take over the Senate, that there would be a change in power sending you to be the majority leader. Did you think you would take the Senate back in 2006?

Harry Reid:

No, or either did Chuck Schumer, but we sure hope we could.

Preet Bharara:

The morning after the election, it wasn’t clear what the results were and my memory may be faulty, but my recollection is that we didn’t know about Virginia. George Allen versus-

Harry Reid:

Or Washington. I remember Washington.

Preet Bharara:

And also, Montana.

Harry Reid:

Oh, yeah. That’s all a cliffhanger.

Preet Bharara:

And Tester is still hanging in there.

Harry Reid:

Tester’s still hanging in there. I love the guy.

Preet Bharara:

Will Haskell is not.

Harry Reid:

He is a farmer. He farms his farm, he and his wife. Wonderful human being. Has a boy working in his dad’s farm ranch. He was grinding hamburger, stuck his hand in the hamburger grinder, and ground off three of his fingers. He’s overcome that handicap. Most people don’t even know that. He’s a talented trumpeter. At Dan Inouye’s funeral, he played his trumpet.

Preet Bharara:

There are a number of senators already declared running for president. But back in the mid-2000s, there was a gentleman who showed up with a lot of flair and with a lot of people talking named Barack Obama. What did you think back then?

Harry Reid:

Well, you should talk to Barack Obama about that. But as everybody knows, now, when he was re-elected, his staff called me and said, “The President wants to talk to you as soon as he gets off of his delivering his acceptance speech.” He told me, “I would never be president, but for you, you’re the one that gave me the idea that I could do it.”

Preet Bharara:

How did you give him the idea?

Harry Reid:

I called him into my office, and I said, “I think this is something that you could do. You should consider running for president.” I laid out the reasons why I thought that he could do it, and I was right.

Preet Bharara:

Do you encourage young people to, as some of the older people would sometimes say, not wait their turn, jump ahead in line, all those kinds of phrases that people use? Especially in a Senate system that’s mostly based on seniority. You don’t get to become a chair of a committee until the other people have died off.

Harry Reid:

I think that people should run when they want to. You run for office when you have it in your heart and your gut to do it. And that’s why I sometimes look with chagrin at people, “I don’t know if I can raise the money. I don’t know if I can win this district. I don’t know…” If you want to run, think it over. If you got the desire to run, go ahead and run. So, when all these candidates are running now, we have as many as 25 democrats running. And I’m very fortunate, I got the opportunity to talk to a lot of them, meet with some of them, and I think that the election process is good. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with having a hotly contested primary.

Preet Bharara:

Do you have any view of this newly elected member of congress who’s getting a lot of attention for her ideas-

Harry Reid:

Is that Kamala Harris you’re talking about?

Preet Bharara:

No. We’ll get to Kamala. I was going to say Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

Harry Reid:

Well, she’s getting some attention. But remember, the Democratic caucus in the House is not a caucus, it’s weight of the left. The reason they have the heavy majority they do is a lot of Democrats won those Republican districts, and they have to get re-elected. And I’ve served with a lot of people who are good, but nobody better than Nancy Pelosi. She understands that. So, the Democratic caucus in House is not far to the left. It’s a centrist caucus, in my opinion.

Preet Bharara:

So, what’s the role for the people who are more on the left?

Harry Reid:

Well, the role is what we always find. Take someone… And I don’t compare her at all to Bernie Sanders. They’re two different people, different ideas. Bernie Sanders was good for the caucus, not everyone was out where he was. Most everyone was more centrist. But the ideas he developed became part of, at one time, was his idea and now it’s a centrist idea. So, there’s nothing wrong with that.

Preet Bharara:

Do you have any view on who is among the top tier strongest people running for president right now or will run for president? You mentioned Kamala Harris a second ago.

Harry Reid:

I have not seen or talk to one of them yet that I find would not make a good president. I mean, I’m impressed with the field again. I’m so glad. And I tell every one of them this, as my opinion, “Do not run your campaign telling everybody how bad Donald Trump is.” Democrats and Independents know that. Forget about how bad he is.

Harry Reid:

You need to have a program that will show how good you’re going to be in working on poverty, working on maintaining a strong, secure America, having a Foreign Service State Department that is accredit to the world, that we have to be part of the international community. And so, anyway, there’s a lot of things that they need to talk about and it’s not how bad Trump is.

Preet Bharara:

And I agree with you. I think that’s actually a very important point, because the question is, given how dominant Trump is every day in the news cycle, multiple news cycles a day, and the taunting he will do, and the attacking he will do, and the tweeting, he will do, how do you present your positive vision without getting sucked into the mud?

Harry Reid:

First of all, understand right now Donald Trump, at best, would get about 26% of the vote, less than 30%, because he gets all the Republicans. But he loses almost all the Independents and, of course, all the Democrats. So, I think that there’s a wide fertile ground out there for a Democratic nominee to ignore Trump and just talk about what America is, not how great it can become, not how great it was, but how great it is.

Preet Bharara:

You once said the Trump is not immoral. He’s amoral. What did you mean by that?

Harry Reid:

He’s amoral. I’m very happy I came up with that word because that day, the Webster Dictionary folks got a 4,300% increase in people asking what the word meant.

Preet Bharara:

Putting aside the dictionary definition, what do you mean by that?

Harry Reid:

Amoral issue or not. If someone is immoral, they’re doing things they know to be wrong. You cheat on your wife, you steal from somebody, that’s immoral, that’s immorality. But someone who is amoral can cheat on their wife, steal a few bucks here and there, they have no conscience. And he has no conscience.

Preet Bharara:

So, if you think he’s amoral until there’s a change, let’s say that might happen in two years, but over the next two years, what is your greatest concern for the country and how it’s performing?

Harry Reid:

I was originally concerned about our country. I’m concerned about the world. This man is a disaster for American foreign policy, which we spent 70 years developing. We now have European nations talking about coming up with their own armies because Trump wants to get out of NATO. He’s frightened everybody. No, I’m not worried anymore about America only, I’m worried about the world.

Preet Bharara:

Are you worried about the rule of law in this country? Or do you think that the intelligence agencies and the law enforcement agencies-

Harry Reid:

It’s beyond laughable. Journalists have tried to determine how many times Trump has lied since he became president. Now, remember, that’s just a little over two years. The last count was near 10,000. 10,000 lies, not exaggeration, lies. That’s what we have to deal with. It’s amazing that he can have his intelligence folks testify under oath in a congressional hearing, and this man says, “All you have to do is call him. They said that they were misquoted.” Millions of people are watching him testify.

Preet Bharara:

I think you served in the Congress during the course of five different presidents. Was there one that was most difficult to deal with and one that was most easy to deal with?

Harry Reid:

I look back at all the many fights I had with Bush number two. Oh, do I wish we had him now compared to what we have.

Preet Bharara:

You’ll never know what you’re going to get.

Harry Reid:

Well, I mean, I feel close to President Carter. He was so smart. He was interested in… As Moyers said on TV one night, comparing him to Reagan, he said, “Carter was down there trying to understand what was wrong with engines. They weren’t firing quite right,” and he was down in the engine room. All Reagan did, he was up at the helm all the time. He never went in any play cells.

Preet Bharara:

How do you think people will look at the Obama presidency years from now?

Harry Reid:

Well, I think the Obama presidency is going to go down in history as one of the best. I had the good fortune of being his quarterback during that time legislatively, and I have nothing but admiration for his morality, his mental acuity, and his basic being. I don’t know if he’s a genius, but he was a fairly new senator and he had given a speech there on the Senate floor. We went out into a caucus so no one else was talking. He was still sitting at his desk. I walked over to him and I said, “Barack, that was such a sensational delivery.”

Harry Reid:

And he looked up at me, and as I say in my book, not and with no boastfulness, no braggadocio. He simply looked at me and said, “I have a gift.” And he has a gift, a gift of communication. You need look no further than before he became a senator. He wrote two best-selling books. He can write, he can speak, he has a gift of communication, and he will go down as one of America’s really, really good presidents.

Preet Bharara:

So, do you think when Obama said he had a gift and just acknowledge that he had this natural gift, that that was a modest statement?

Harry Reid:

Yes, it absolutely was, and I’ve said that every time. Every time I’ve told that story, I hope I conveyed the fact that it was done in modesty. Now, I also think that one of the presidents I served under was just so terrific and had he not had the problem with Lewinsky, he would go down as one of America’s top three presidents. Look at what he did, that Balanced Budget Deficit Reduction Act, which put America on a road to economic vitality for longer than any time in the history of the country. He did that without a single Republican vote. Gore had to break the tie. Great president. Great president.

Preet Bharara:

Did you ever have a time when you were in the Oval Office, and you’ve been in the Oval Office with many different people as we’ve discussed as President, where you had to be firm or talk back or express anger or irritation or upsetness in some way?

Harry Reid:

We’ve all watched the performance of Trump with Pelosi and Schumer. I went to many, many meetings in the Oval Office. They were all dignified. The President had an agenda. He went over the agenda with us, never left without asking us how we felt about what he was doing. So, my memories of the Oval Office were really good. I especially liked Obama because he always had apples there, and I always take one with me.

Preet Bharara:

To borrow the old phrase from some of the mob movies, “It was always business, not personal.”

Harry Reid:

Oh, yes. And Nancy Pelosi, who I admire immensely, and I’m confident, I don’t know, but I assume she did the same as I did. If I had something with a president that I just thought was wrong, I would just call him and talk to him about it, or say, “Do you mind if I spend a few minutes with you after this?” I’ve done that a few times. But I would never bring up in the Oval Office, something to challenge his dignity.

Preet Bharara:

Do you have any major regret legislatively or otherwise during your career?

Harry Reid:

Well, the answer is, the number one is I voted for the Iraq War. Now, I determined very quickly I was wrong, and I certainly did plenty to rectify, but that was my biggest mistake that I made. I was taken in by Colin Powell’s presentation, I believe, yellowcake, and all that stuff was no foundation to it. So, that’s my biggest mistake.

Preet Bharara:

Is there something you’re most proud of?

Harry Reid:

No, I don’t. I don’t like to do that. I think I sometimes have to do that. I did the best I could with the tools I had.

Preet Bharara:

Can I ask you about some senators who I think you didn’t mention-

Harry Reid:

Sure.

Preet Bharara:

… and just ask you to give an impression of what they were like or your relationship with them, what was it like working with them? Bob Dole.

Harry Reid:

I have a lot of memories of Bob Dole. He never was mean to me. He could be pretty damn tough if you got in where he didn’t think you should be in as to procedure on the Senate.

Harry Reid:

But here’s my fondest memory of Bob Dole. I got a call from him and he said, “I want you to go to the Rotunda with me to see Danny.” That’s Danny Inouye. So, we’re there for a small number of people, and we get to the Rotunda. There’s a little alcove there and he said, “Stop.” He said, “Danny is not going to see me in a wheelchair,” and he, with some help, was taken over to the bir where the casket was of Danny Inouye. He saluted him with his only arm he could move. Now, that was something. That was a tearful time for me. That was tearful.

Preet Bharara:

Yeah. Orrin Hatch.

Harry Reid:

Orrin Hatch was good to me. He’s a fellow Mormon, and he would always tell everybody, he said, “I know you’re too liberal to be a Mormon, but you seemed to be pretty good to me.” He helped me get judges when no one else could get judges. He was happy to have done that. He did it for me.

Preet Bharara:

How about Arlen Specter?

Harry Reid:

Arlen Specter, I had a good relationship. As you know, I was one of those that helping switch parties late in his career. He was a tough guy to deal with. He was nobody’s fool.

Preet Bharara:

How about Ted Cruz?

Harry Reid:

Ted Cruz is… I don’t dislike Ted Cruz. I do hope he gets beaten running for the Senate.

Preet Bharara:

Right. Yeah. I read that you had a conversation, you talked with Senator McCain before he passed away. What did you talk about?

Harry Reid:

Well, John and I had a long history. We came to the House together in 1982. We came to the Senate together in 1986. And John was no shrinking violet. Oh, he would get mad at me to come over and I’m going to campaign against GI Bill and all that kind of stuff. And in Nevada, that would have hurt me. I don’t think he ever did it that I remember, but he threatened me.

Harry Reid:

So, we had so many wonderful conversations. I told him, I said, “John, I think you’ll probably remember this,” and I said, “I gave a speech and I could see over there, I knew you’re coming to get me.” And he walked over there and he said, “You know what I’m going to do, don’t you? He said, “Yeah, I’m going to kick the shit out of you.” I said, “Well, if the rule was reversed, I would do the same thing.” And we joked about that because that’s true. But we did such good things together.

Harry Reid:

This may sound not very important to anybody, but it was important to me. We had a big new multi, I don’t how many hundreds of millions of dollars at cost, a new bridge across Colorado River, because a dam was thought to be a terrorist target and we need a new bridge over that to make that safer. And so, we provide the money and build that beautiful bridge. So, I wanted to name it after my mentor, Mike O’Callaghan. And I was the leader at the time, I probably could have gotten it done because it would have been embarrassing for anybody to pose this legend in Nevada.

Harry Reid:

But I thought, “Well, I’m going to make it easier.” So, I went over to McCain and I said, “Hey, John. O’Callaghan, you know him, I’m going to put his name on the bridge. Why don’t we make it easy? We’ll put Pat Tillman on.” So, we call deal. O’Callaghan-Tillman Bridge. That was done, in legislative time, maybe a minute. We got it done that quickly.

Harry Reid:

When he got sick, I talked to him. I hesitated calling him. I called and one answered the phone. I said, “Can I give a message for Sir McCain?” She said, “Who is it?” I said, “Senator Reid.” She said, “Why don’t you just talk to him?” So, that was the beginning of a number of calls that John and I had as he was dying. It took a long time for him to die. But we had good times, we’ve laughed and shed some tears.

Preet Bharara:

Another late senator who was a force to be reckoned with in that body was Senator Kennedy, Ted Kennedy, who had a relationship and a friendship with John McCain, especially on immigration, and that’s one of the issues that I worked on when I was a staffer. What did you make of that friendship, that across that friendship?

Harry Reid:

I’m in my office here in the Bellagio Hotel in Las Vegas. I look up here, there’s something that I have kept for 50 years. It’s a letter from President Kennedy to me. It’s written, he had not been inaugurated, he had been elected. He wrote it to me. I was a student at Utah State University and I formed the first [inaudible 00:55:49] Democrats Club there. And he sent me a letter, and Ted Kennedy, he looked at that letter that was in the Capitol reception area. He looked at that letter, he always told that’s his signature. He wanted to make sure that I know it wasn’t a huddle pan or something like that.

Harry Reid:

So, Ted Kennedy, people don’t realize he had this blooming voice. He was a very famous man. But he always took the time, I’m sure with others as he did with me, to write me these letters. I call them love letters. I did something decent that he liked, and he always would write me a letter. A memorable man. He was a man who saw such tragedy in his personal life, the life of his family. And out of it, he still had this huge heart for public service.

Harry Reid:

And I remember at one of my caucuses, I used to have senators come and spend five minutes telling about themselves. You’d be surprised we spent a lot of time together, but we really don’t know each other personally. And Evan Bayh caught up and talked about his experiences and he finished, and Ted Kennedy stood and said, “What you didn’t tell him is your dad saved my life.” That plane crash they were in work, Ted was always infirm until the day he died because of that plane crash. He said, “Your dad pulled me out of a burning airplane and saved my life.”

Preet Bharara:

When you think about your time in the Senate and in the House, do you have fondest memories?

Harry Reid:

My fondest memory is being in the Majority Leader’s office, the Democratic Leader’s office. Sitting there alone as I was lots of time was long lots of time. But there were occasions when I just sat there, and these are my memories that I will always have, I couldn’t put out of my mind how great America is. Why? Because if a guy like Harry Reid can make it, anybody could make it. Anybody could make it. And so, that’s my thought here. I was in that office and I’d come from where I came from.

Preet Bharara:

Can I push you on something since you say that?

Harry Reid:

Sure.

Preet Bharara:

You said in this interview and you have said before, I’ll quote you, “I know my limitations. I haven’t gotten where I am by my good looks, my athletic ability, my great brain, my oratorical skills,” and yet look what you did. You have to attribute that to something. What is it?

Harry Reid:

I’ve thought about that. The only thing I can say is I really appreciated people being nice to me from the time I was a boy, and I just always tried to be nice to people, and maybe that helped.

Harry Reid:

And also, there’s something else, I think, but I haven’t said this very publicly, I always felt one of my strong suits. I was able to tell people, “No, that’s hard.” But people admire you for being able to tell people no. And I think that’s one reason why caucus appreciated me, one reason, because I didn’t play games with people. I would tell them, “No, I can’t help you with this.” But I was willing to go the extra mile on occasion, when I thought it was good for the team, so to speak. I don’t know, and it didn’t hurt to remind you of this. I don’t doubt it. It never happened in the history of Senate where anyone did what I did.

Harry Reid:

You may remember we were tied, 50-50. We had a Republican president. So, a Republican president, that meant that the Republican can control the Senate. So, I talked to Jim Jeffords from Vermont. I knew he was unhappy. I never talked to him privately. It was always on the Senate floor. And one night, I went to Daschle, who was the Democratic leader. I said, “Tom, I got a meeting in the morning with Jeffords. I think you should come to it.” Tom said, “I got another breakfast meeting.” I said, “Well, you better come with this one. I’m going to try to get him to switch parties.”

Harry Reid:

He came to that meeting. I said, “Here’s the deal I’m going to make you, Jim. I’m chairman of the Environment and Public Works Committee. I have a staff of about 15. You switch parties, you become the chairman of that committee, which I know you would love, and you’ll have my staff. All of them. I don’t keep anybody.” That switched the majority in the Senate. And as I said, I don’t think anyone’s ever done anything like that before. But that’s what teamwork is all about.

Preet Bharara:

Yeah, that’s extraordinary. Let me end with this. When you think about the country and you think about what is possible in the country, and from time to time you say a prayer for the country, what would that prayer be?

Harry Reid:

That the American people would realize how fortunate they are that we have this democracy that is not going to exist forever just because we want it to. It’s going to exist for the foreseeable future and the future after that if we work to make it the good country that it is now. I don’t like people going out and saying, “Let’s make America great again.” I don’t like that. America is great right now. Our goal, my goal is to keep America great as it is now.

Preet Bharara:

Senator Reid, let me just say it’s been an honor to talk to you having been a fly on the wall 15 years ago, 14 years ago, and watching you work with so many other senators in that very special place that I was in awe of every day I serve there, even though I’ll probably never go back. I appreciate your time. I always do. Thank you, Senator.

Harry Reid:

Well, it would be good if everyone that does these podcasts have the reputation you have. Your-

Preet Bharara:

Well, thank you.

Harry Reid:

… reputation’s irreproachable. Everybody thinks the world of you intellectually and simply just being a nice person.

Preet Bharara:

Thank you, Senator. That’s very kind of you. Take care.

Harry Reid:

Thank you a lot. Bye.