By Ted Barrett
A day after Donald Trump repeatedly mispronounced Nevada during campaign stops in the key swing state, an insulted Sen. Harry Reid fired back, accusing the GOP presidential candidate of concealing his tax returns because they would prove he has “no business ethics” and “raped and pillaged Atlantic City.”
“I think Donald Trump is a first class prevaricator,” said Reid who has become a leading Democratic agitator for Trump to release his tax records. “He doesn’t tell the truth. He’s afraid to show his income tax returns. He raped and pillaged Atlantic City. Who knows what his tax records would show there.”
Reid, in a conference call with reporters sponsored by the Nevada Democratic Party, said Trump was refused a permanent gaming license in Nevada following his business problems in New Jersey.
“With what he did in Atlantic City, what his conduct has been the last 15 to 20 years. It’s outrageous. He has no business ethics,” Reid said. “I don’t know why Donald Trump thinks he’s above the requirement of being candid with the American people.”
Trump has said he won’t release his tax records until an IRS audit of his taxes is complete. Reid said at a minimum, Trump should release a letter proving the audit is happening.
“If he is really being audited, which some people doubt his truth and veracity, he could give us a copy of his audit letter. The audit letter doesn’t say anything other than that he’s being audited,” Reid insisted.
Reid said Trump’s inattention to the proper pronunciation of Nevada — Trump said Ne-VAH- da instead of Nev-AD-a — would be reflected in how he would treat the state if he were elected to the White House. In particular, Reid said he was stunned Trump was unaware of the decades’ long fight over nuclear waste storage in Yucca Mountain, a program Reid fought hard to kill.
“If you want nuclear waste in Nevada, the suggestion I would have is vote for the Trump/Heck ticket,” Reid said in reference to Rep. Joe Heck, R-Nevada who is vying against Catherine Cortez Masto for the Senate seat Reid is leaving.
Reid said despite polls showing Democrats Cortez Masto and Hillary Clinton in tight races, he expects both to win, in part because of the support of Hispanic voters who have been turned off by the anti-immigration messages of Trump and Heck.
“We’re doing well with Hispanics. We’re going to do better the next 32 days,” he said. “Clinton is going to win Nevada, Cortez Masto is going to win Nevada and one of the main reasons is because we’ll have a very, very strong Hispanic vote.”
Slams RealClearPolitics
Reid, who like many elected officials insists he does not rely on polling, slammed RealClearPolitics, the website know for averaging public polls to provide a snapshot of where races stand, after a reporter for the site asked why Cortez Masto was struggling in the polls.
“I don’t want to let any of the air out of your balloon buddy, but RealClearPolitics is the worst because all you do is average the polls that have been taken. All of them are wrong. So rather than doing your own stuff, you average out all these bad polls,” Reid said.
“So let me tell you, six years ago, I never led in a poll. Never,” he added of his 2010 comeback win. “But I ended winning by six points. And Catherine is going to win by a nice margin so RealClearPolitics is totally unimpressive to me.”
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