LAS VEGAS — The Senate is done with Harry Reid, but Harry Reid isn't done with politics — not even a little bit.

The 77-year-old ex-Democratic Senate leader has been encouraging multiple Democrats to run for president, he acknowledged to POLITICO in an interview late last week at his work space two miles from the Las Vegas Strip. He skewered the congressional Republicans whom he blames for the rise of Donald Trump. And while insisting he’s leaving the daily tactical maneuvering in the Senate to Chuck Schumer after 34 years in Washington, Reid acknowledged dialing and texting with Democratic senators who seek his advice on how to better fight back against Trump.


“I didn’t want anyone thinking I was still trying to run the Senate, so I told them I wasn’t going to try and run the Senate. I told Schumer: If you need me, you call me anytime, I’m available. I will only call you under circumstances I think I need to. And that’s what I’ve done,” he said. “I hope that makes him feel good, that I’m not saying, ‘Chuck, why the hell’d you do that?’ Or calling [Senate Minority Whip Dick] Durbin and saying, ‘Talk to Chuck and tell him, don’t do that, that’s so dumb.’ Or call Schumer and say, ‘Tell Durbin to shut up.’ I haven’t done that.”

Long Mitch McConnell’s chief tormentor, Reid even went out of his way to give props to the GOP leader’s newest nemesis: Ex-White House strategist and current Breitbart leader Steve Bannon, who is recruiting a slate of Republican primary challengers with the explicit aim of removing the Senate majority leader.

“Until the last year or so, I never heard of the man. Now I’ve heard of him,” Reid said of Bannon. “He’s obviously very persuasive and extremely smart. Everyone acknowledges he’s smart and persuasive."

Ten months after his departure from Washington, Reid has carved out a significant behind-the-scenes advisory role for himself in guiding the future of his party, while strengthening his role as the mastermind of Democratic politics in his home state. He's no longer whipping votes or drawing headlines by knifing Trump: His day job is co-chairing an MGM Resorts-funded think tank with John Boehner.

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But Reid is also spending his days working to solidify his legacy here by electing a slate of Democrats in 2018, including Rep. Jacky Rosen in her bid to replace Republican Sen. Dean Heller.

“When I left Washington on Jan. 6, I made a decision: I wasn’t going to live in the past, I was going to live in the future,” Reid said, sitting in his windowless second-floor office at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas' law school building. “Now, did I really believe it at the time? Not really, but that’s what I said to myself.”

Yet he’s also been taking calls from potential presidential candidates, rising Democratic stars and party eminences who are asking for his guidance. During a recent trip to Washington, where he’s in the midst of selling his apartment at the Ritz-Carlton, Reid met with Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, whom he helped bring to the capital in the first place nearly a decade ago.

That's not all, Reid said. In addition to sitting down with Democratic leaders like Nancy Pelosi and Schumer, his schedule also included time with former President Barack Obama, former Vice President Joe Biden, former White House chief of staff Denis McDonough, and John Podesta, the former campaign chairman for Hillary Clinton.

Schumer said he talks to Reid multiple times per month, and the topics range from political advice to casual conversations about their families. “He’ll often see something on TV and just call me,” said the New Yorker.

Durbin, who speaks to Reid a similar amount, said Reid “never” calls about ongoing Senate business, and is “very careful” to avoid doing anything that could undercut Schumer or confuse the caucus’ hierarchy.

The conversations tend to be more quotidian: In one recent chat, Reid called Durbin and said, “Dick, I’m standing in front of a Barnes and Noble. Recommend a book,” Durbin said.

When Reid speaks with current senators, he waits to be asked for advice rather than offer it unsolicited, said half a dozen Democratic senators who’ve spoken with him. When he comes through Washington, he has encouraged the caucus to be bold and outspoken in their resistance to Trump in order to give voters something to support.

Among those on the call list of his rarely holstered iPhone is Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders: The two are still friendly, and a former top Reid aide, Ari Rabin-Havt, is now a senior adviser to the once- and maybe future presidential contender. Reid’s first meeting after his POLITICO interview last week was with Sanders’ former campaign manager, Jeff Weaver, who was in town for a Democratic National Committee meeting.

Reid also speaks frequently with Warren, with whom he's built a close relationship. (Another former top Reid staffer, former communications director Kristen Orthman, now works for Warren.)

And he often connects with other progressive members of the caucus, including Sens. Brian Schatz of Hawaii and Jeff Merkley of Oregon, who caught Reid's attention with his 15-hour protest of then-Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch in April, as well as his trip to Iowa last month.

Reid acknowledges he's popular among potential presidential hopefuls eager to check in with the longtime political chief of an influential early voting battleground state.

“I am happy to see people wanting to run. That’s why, all these people who want to run for president? [It’s] good,” he said. “They come here and say they’re going to run. I say, ‘Good, run.’ That’s what I’ve told a few of them.”

How many? “Enough.”

Reid remains polarizing within the party. So his continued activity is frustrating to critics who thought his retirement would mean a full exit from the political scene. Many Sanders allies still accuse him of quietly helping Clinton during 2016’s critical Nevada caucuses.

And some Democratic senators who clashed with Reid say they’re happy with the switch to Schumer, who has had to focus more on protecting red-state Democrats facing tough reelection battles in 2018.

“Harry didn’t talk to me when he was here,” said Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia, who had a frosty relationship with Reid and now serves on Schumer’s leadership team. “I have more input than I ever had before and I feel good about that.”

Reid has an extensive network in Washington through former top aides who now work in influential Senate offices and at groups such as the American Civil Liberties Union (national political director Faiz Shakir) and the Center for American Progress (senior adviser Adam Jentleson). And Reid still works closely with longtime staffer Rebecca Lambe, the top Democratic political operative in Nevada who also works with Senate Democrats' national super PAC, and his former chief of staff Susan McCue, who called him midway through the interview.

But for all his political activity, Reid now deflects when asked about Trump, saying only that the president's tenure has been "by far" worse than he feared during the campaign. How so? “I’m not going to get into that. Other people can talk about that,” Reid said.

His ire is reserved for congressional Republicans.

“People are under the false impression that Trump created the Republican Congress. Wrong. They created him, they created him," Reid said. "They did not like Barack Obama, [so] they only came up with two answers: No. 1, we’re going to oppose his reelection ...They failed miserably. The other, they get an A-plus. They opposed everything, everything he tried to do for eight years.”

Of course, that antipathy goes both ways. “Harry Reid, I think he really poisoned the atmosphere in this place,” said Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn (R-Texas).

The bulk of Reid’s work is now focused on bolstering Nevada’s shift toward becoming reliably Democratic. Reid, who for years considered himself a red-state Democrat, sees that evolution as a big part of his legacy.

Reid has made the case to national party leaders that his blueprint for Nevada — heavily funding grass-roots organizing and voter registration efforts — should be the model in a targeted set of states, rather than a broader-strokes approach nationwide.

Though Reid headlined a fundraiser for the DNC on Friday, much of this year's activity is focused on ousting Heller, who’s taken fire from Democrats as well as Bannon-aligned insurgents on the right.

“I’m a big fan of Jacky Rosen’s, I’m doing everything I can to help her,” said Reid. "Dean Heller’s a nice guy and I’m not going to go out of my way to whack him. There are plenty of others doing that.”

He maintains a good relationship with GOP Gov. Brian Sandoval — they kept in touch during this summer's fights over Obamacare repeal, and met just before Sandoval appeared with Heller to oppose one plan in June. But the race to replace Sandoval is just one of several Nevada state races that bear Reid's fingerprints: He's also deeply immersed in elections for secretary of state and Rosen’s House seat, among others.

But no matter how often local Republicans portray him as a sinister puppet master, he’s not going anywhere. Without the Senate, his friends and former aides say, Reid is now free to roam as a political animal.

“I don’t expect him to go away from that,” said Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.), Reid’s successor in the Senate, who keeps in close touch with him. "And I don’t think he should."

