Harry Reid Hits Back at Trump for Invoking Him in Birthright Citizenship Battle: ‘I Made a Mistake’

Caleb EcarmaOct 31st, 2018, 2:37 pm
 

After Donald Trump tried to use his old words against the Democrats, former Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid released a statement declaring that he has changed his mind on birthright citizenship since introducing a proposal to end the policy in 1993, which the president now wants to revive.

Reid released the following statement today, after Trump and conservative pundits began using it to paint Democrats as hypocrites:

“In 1993, around the time Donald Trump was gobbling up tax-free inheritance money from his wealthy father and driving several companies into bankruptcy, I made a mistake. After I proposed that awful bill, my wife Landra immediately sat me down and said, ‘Harry, what are you doing, don’t you know that my father is an immigrant?’ She set me straight. And in 36 years in Washington, there is no more valuable lesson I learned than the strength and power of immigrants and no issue I worked harder on than fixing our broken immigration system.”

He concluded his comments by calling immigrants “the lifeblood of our nation” and accusing Trump of wanting “to destroy not build, to stoke hatred instead of unify.”

“He can tweet whatever he wants while he sits around watching TV, but he is profoundly wrong,” Reid added.

Trump recently raised the idea of ending birthright citizenship in an interview with Axios. Since then, he has brought up Reid’s old views to promote his effort.

Trump also tweeted a video of Reid on the Senate floor calling to end birth right citizneship in the 1990s.

[image via screengrab]

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Caleb Ecarma

Caleb Ecarma was a reporter at Mediaite. Email him here: caleb@mediaite.com Follow him on Twitter here: @calebecarma