Harry Reid says Trump 'raped and pillaged' Atlantic City

Donald Trump “raped and pillaged” Atlantic City during his time running casinos in the New Jersey city, Harry Reid said on Thursday during an extended attack on everything from Trump's pronunciation of Nevada to his refusal to release his tax returns.

Asked about Trump’s failure to release his tax returns, the Senate minority leader lit into the failure of Trump’s casino businesses in the hard-hit Jersey gambling town.


“He raped and pillaged Atlantic City. Who knows what his tax returns would show?” Reid said on Thursday in a conference call. “I don’t know why Donald Trump thinks he’s above the requirement” of releasing tax returns.

Reid went on to disparage Trump’s pronunciation of Nevada at a rally on Wednesday and his noncommittal answer on Yucca Mountain, a controversial proposed nuclear waste disposal site in Nevada that’s the subject of heated debate in the state.

“This is a man who wouldn't listen to his own staff about how to pronounce the name of our state,” Reid said. “He proved he’s clueless about Nevada by saying he’s not aware of the Yucca Mountain issue … everybody knows about Yucca Mountain, you go to an elementary school.”

The Nevada Democrat didn't focus his ire exclusively on Trump. He also dinged Rep. Joe Heck (R-Nev.) for supporting Trump in his bid to win the retiring Reid’s seat. And a question from a RealClearPolitics reporter about Democrat Catherine Cortez Masto’s sagging poll numbers in her race against Heck did not go well, either.

“I don’t want to let any air out for your balloon, buddy, but RealClearPolitics is one of the worst. … All they do is average all of these bad polls,” Reid said. “RealClearPolitics is unimpressive.”

He predicted Hillary Clinton would win Nevada and Cortez Masto would succeed him. And then he hung up.