Harry Reid calls Donald Trump "unhinged" and an "egomaniac"
Harry Reid called Donald Trump an "unhinged individual" and an "unbalanced, egomaniac" on Wednesday in one of the sharpest condemnations yet of the presumptive Republican nominee.
"I can't think of a worse idea than placing the power of the next Supreme Court justice in the hands of this unhinged individual. He calls Latinos rapists and murderers," the Senate minority leader said on the Senate floor.
"Republicans want to put the Supreme Court in the hands of an unbalanced, egomaniac," he added. "Senator [Chuck] Grassley and his colleagues say they want the future of the highest court to be determined by an anti-woman, anti-Latino, anti-middle-class billionaire who demeans women every day."
Reid also said it would be a "guaranteed recipe for disaster" if Trump had the opportunity to choose a Supreme Court nominee.
These were the Democratic leader's first remarks since Trump became the presumptive GOP nominee last week, which happened when Congress was on recess.
Democrats have been blasting Senate Republicans for deciding not to consider President Obama's nomination of Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court. The upper chamber received a 142-page questionnaire from Garland on Tuesday.
In three key swing states -- Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania -- a majority of voters said that the Senate should consider Garland's nomination, according to a Quinnipiac University survey released Wednesday. In Florida and Pennsylvania, more than half said the Senate should confirm his nomination while nearly half said the same in Ohio.
In January, Reid joked on the Senate floor that he was "kind of pulling for [Trump]," but then later walked back that remark, saying that Trump is a "hateful demagogue who will do immeasurable damage to our country."
Reid is retiring from Congress at the end of the year.
Democrats hope Trump's nomination will help them take back control of the Senate in the general election. Republicans won the majority in the 2014 midterm elections.
Although all of his Republican challengers have dropped out of the race, Trump isn't officially the nominee yet. According to CBS News' latest count, Trump has picked up 1,104 delegates. He needs 1,237 delegates to clinch the nomination.