Reid On Trump’s Claim That Clinton Started Birtherism: ‘He’s A Liar!’

Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) on Friday called out Donald Trump’s claim that Hillary Clinton and her 2008 campaign started the birther movement, a narrative that has been debunked.

“Hillary brought it up? What a liar. He never questioned the citizenship of anyone else running for president, no one else. He is just such a phony. Here’s a man you can’t believe anything he says,” Reid said on CNN shortly after Trump said that he now believes President Obama was born in the United States, and claimed credit, falsely, for resolving a conspiracy theory he claimed Clinton started.

“He is one of the most unbelievably immoral people I have ever heard deal with politics. Here’s a man who attacks people of color, women, people’s sexual identity, people who are handicapped,” Reid continued.

When asked if Trump’s effort to question where Obama was born was racially motivated, Reid responded, “Of course it is.”

“But forget about that,” Reid continued. “Why has he let this drag on for years? And then the man has the audacity, the ability to lie like no one I’ve ever seen. He said, ‘Well, Hillary’s the one that brought it up.’ There couldn’t be anything further from the truth. He’s a liar, and I don’t know if we should give any credence to anything the man says.”

But when asked if Trump is racist, Reid wouldn’t say.

“I don’t know. All you guys have a job to do. You make that decision. I’m not going to. I’m just telling you what he’s done, and we’ve seen it. He’s a man of no morality,” the minority leader said.

Reid also addressed Trump’s recent comment that Reid “should go back and start working out again with his rubber work-out pieces,” a reference to the senator’s 2015 exercise accident that left him blind in one eye. Reid gave a statement earlier Friday, and followed up with CNN.

“I over my career have had some altercations with a lot of people but they’ve all been big shots: presidents, senators, governors. I don’t attack the little people and that’s what he loves to do. Whether it’s because of someone’s color, sexual identity, because they’re a woman, because they’re handicapped, because they’re smarter than he is,” Reid said. “He goes after people who can’t defend themselves. And I always, always try to go after people who can defend themselves.”

Finally, Reid insisted to CNN that recent polls showing the presidential race tightening are incorrect.

“Donald Trump will never be elected president of the United States. We’re going to retake the Senate,” he said. “All of these polls are a joke.”

When CNN’s Manu Raju noted that polls are tightening, Reid said that polls have shown Clinton’s lead narrowing “because people like the ones you work for get these cheap polls that they can keep making news on.”

“Your numbers are not fair. They’re not reliable,” Reid said when asked again about Clinton’s poll numbers. “I don’t buy you’re silliness with $500 polls you go out and buy overnight. They’re not right. I don’t believe them. They’re incorrect. You only do it to generate some news. Donald Trump is a fraud.”