USA Today

Outgoing Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid unleashed a bitter condemnation of President-elect Donald Trump on Friday, blasting him as a “sexual predator” who “fueled his campaign with bigotry and hate.”

“If this is going to be a time of healing, we must first put the responsibility for healing where it belongs: at the feet of Donald Trump, a sexual predator who lost the popular vote and fueled his campaign with bigotry and hate,” Reid said in a long statement. “Winning the electoral college does not absolve Trump of the grave sins he committed against millions of Americans. Donald Trump may not possess the capacity to assuage those fears, but he owes it to this nation to try.”

Added Reid: “If Trump wants to roll back the tide of hate he unleashed, he has a tremendous amount of work to do and he must begin immediately.”

The Nevada Democrat was an outspoken critic of Trump throughout the long presidential campaign, but his continuing vitriol toward Trump stands in contrast to most Democratic leaders, who have been trying to offer a conciliatory note in the wake of Tuesday’s election results. Trump met with President Obama and congressional leaders Thursday and tried to offer a reassuring message of his own about the peaceful transition of power and his willingness to work with past critics.

Reid is retiring in January, so he won’t have to work with the new president. The veteran senator campaigned hard in Nevada to ensure that Hillary Clinton won the state and to elect Democrat Catherine Cortez Masto to succeed him.

“I have personally been on the ballot in Nevada for 26 elections and I have never seen anything like the reaction to the election completed last Tuesday,” Reid said. “The election of Donald Trump has emboldened the forces of hate and bigotry in America.”

“White nationalists, Vladimir Putin and ISIS are celebrating Donald Trump’s victory, while innocent, law-abiding Americans are wracked with fear — especially African Americans, Hispanic Americans, Muslim Americans, LGBT Americans and Asian Americans,” Reid continued. “Watching white nationalists celebrate while innocent Americans cry tears of fear does not feel like America.”

Reid said the fear of minority groups about Trump “is entirely rational, because Donald Trump has talked openly about doing terrible things to them.”

“Every news piece that breathlessly obsesses over inauguration preparations compounds their fear by normalizing a man who has threatened to tear families apart, who has bragged about sexually assaulting women and who has directed crowds of thousands to intimidate reporters and assault African Americans,” Reid said. “Their fear is legitimate and we must refuse to let it fall through the cracks between the fluff pieces.”