Harry Reid assesses 2016 Republican field: ‘I think they’re all losers’

Reid pauses during a news conference this week in Washington. (Photo: Manuel Balce Ceneta/AP)

Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid is not mincing words for Republican presidential hopefuls on his way out the door.

The 75-year-old Nevada Democrat — who announced last month that he will not seek re-election next year, ending a three-decade congressional career — was asked who he believes will be the likely 2016 GOP nominee.

“I don’t really care,” Reid said in an interview with CNBC. “I think they’re all losers.”

When asked about Kentucky Sen. Mitch McConnell’s opposition to President Barack Obama’s energy plan, Reid, the former Senate majority leader, called McConnell, the current majority leader, a “lump of coal.”

“He comes from a coal state,” Reid said. “I don’t mean to be mean-spirited, but he is a lump of coal. He believes coal is the salvation of the world. I don’t believe that.”

Reid — a noted master of the Washington insult — also relayed a story about a recent exchange he had with Arizona Sen. John McCain.

“It wasn’t long ago he came to me on the Senate floor and said, ‘What you just did, I’m going to come to the floor and kick the s*** out of you,’” Reid recalled. “And I said to him, ‘John, if I were in your position, I’d do the same thing.’”

Reid said he would be comfortable with Hillary Clinton as the 2016 Democratic presidential nominee and dismissed the notion the former secretary of state needs a strong candidate to run against her in the Democratic primary.

“I am not a big fan of primaries,” Reid said. “I don’t think they help, especially when you’re someone as noted as Hillary.”

Reid, who recently suffered broken ribs and facial fractures in an accident while exercising at his Nevada home, said he isn’t sure what he’s going to do after he steps down from the Senate.

“I don’t know what I’m going to do,” he said. “I’m not going to lobby. I’m not going to practice law. But I’ll keep busy. I may want one of your jobs — to be an analyst on TV — and say all these good things that you always say about me.”

(Cover tile photo: Joshua Roberts/Reuters)