Story highlights Harry Reid advises fellow Senate Democrats to pick fights strategically with the new President.

The retiring Nevadan said there could compromise with Donald Trump on trade

The Axe Files, featuring David Axelrod, is a podcast distributed by CNN and produced at the University of Chicago Institute of Politics. The author works for the podcast.

Washington (CNN) Outgoing Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid says he finds President-elect Donald Trump's Cabinet lineup "scary."

"We can go through the list of people he's already chosen and it's, quite frankly, scary," Reid told David Axelrod on "The Axe Files" podcast, produced by the University of Chicago Institute of Politics and CNN.

Reid, who retires this week after 34 years in Congress, expressed concern about Trump's Cabinet so far: that Betsy DeVos, Trump's choice for education secretary, hasn't had any personal experience with public education; that Tom Price, his nominee for Health and Human Services, "has avowed to privatize Medicare and wants to do away with Planned Parenthood;" and that "you have what looks like some kind of an auction going on for secretary of state; I don't quite get that."

Though Reid is hardly sanguine about the prospect of a Trump presidency, he advises fellow Senate Democrats to pick fights strategically with the new President.

"I told them what they have to do is to make sure that they're constructive in their negativity," Reid said.

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