Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has had one of the hardest jobs in Washington for the past six years as he battled Republicans, struggled to keep his party in power and worked to advance President Barack Obama’s agenda.

Now it’s bound to get even more complicated.


As Reid heads for the minority, his caucus is divided between moderates and a rising progressive wing. His likely successor is waiting in the wings. The White House could cut deals with Republicans without him. And all the while, he’ll be fighting for his life back home in a potentially brutal reelection race.

In a wide-ranging interview with POLITICO, one of his first since the elections this fall, a defiant Reid showed his cards on the incredible losses his party suffered — he blames the rollout of the health care law — on his future — he’s hiring staff for his next campaign already — on how he plans to operate in the new world order — ready to take on Republicans when necessary but accepts that the White House may work with his rival Mitch McConnell, whether he likes it or not.

( Also on POLITICO: A tea party for the left?)

“I believe that my job in my Democratic Caucus is to try to pass legislation. I’m anxious to do it,” Reid said of the new Congress. “I want to do some mainstream things. But I believe that if [Republicans] want to try to do all this crazy stuff, we’re getting out of that stream. … If it’s not mainstream, they’re not going to have us to play with.”

After years of brewing tension with McConnell, along with the White House, Reid will now have to decide whether to side with deal-making Democratic moderates or progressive hard-liners — and early signs are that he plans to do a little of both.

While he said he is “not going to stand in the way” of one key aspect of the White House agenda that he strongly opposes — the administration’s international trade deals — he also blasted another Republican effort that could garner bipartisan support: corporate tax reform, saying “that damn sure isn’t mainstream” and is a “code message for ‘let’s take care of business.’”

Sitting in his office overlooking the National Mall in his final days as majority leader, with his legs extended and a fireplace burning, a feisty Reid was noncommittal about running for Democratic leader again and insisted there is nothing he could have done differently to make the Senate work more efficiently over the past two years.

( Also on POLITICO: McConnell's Obamacare gambit)

Asked if any of the gridlock was his fault, Reid said emphatically: “No,” blaming the GOP for bottling up legislation and saying the media are “absolutely wrong” for saying he prevented votes from occurring in the past two years.

“There’s nothing we tried to do that they were in favor of,” he said of Republicans.

Reid, now, may pay back Republicans — since he plans to bottle up McConnell’s agenda if the GOP leader moves to rein in Obamacare, environmental regulations, immigration policies or women’s issues like abortion rights.

His relationship problems don’t stop with Republicans. He’ll also have to deal with a White House that isn’t always on the same page, and it’s clear Reid continues to believe that it was the administration’s handling of implementing the health care law that cost them the majority.

( Also on POLITICO: Reid makes push for nominees)

Still, heading into the next two years, Reid said he doesn’t believe the White House will undercut him and argues that vetoes will only bolster Obama’s standing.

“It’s much easier now, I got a president who will back me up,” Reid said, unlike the last time he served as minority leader in 2005-06, succeeding Tom Daschle after he lost his reelection bid in South Dakota. “I’ll be happier if we’re unfortunate enough to pass crazy stuff and he vetoes it. That would make me feel good. It will be good for his presidency.”

Asked about his relationship with Obama, Reid said: “He’s said I’m certainly the best friend he has up here. So that’s what he says to me. I’m sure he says that to anybody who asks him.”

Since the elections, Reid and the White House have already misfired. As Reid was zeroing in on a bipartisan deal to extend expired tax breaks for two years, the White House took the highly unusual move of issuing a veto threat after Senate Finance Chairman Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and other Democrats argued the emerging measure had a pro-business tilt.

In the interview, Reid directed the blame at some of his fellow Democratic senators for killing the deal, saying it was “not the White House necessarily” that derailed it.

“A few of my senators got involved, and they didn’t know what they were talking about,” Reid said.

Defending his moves, Wyden said Tuesday that he never saw details of the deal Reid negotiated, but he was hearing outrage from liberal lawmakers, think tanks and anti-poverty groups about how it was being structured.

“We had all of these rumors and I’d explained [to Reid] that I couldn’t support it,” he said. “About an hour or two after that, the president called and said, ‘I’m on Air Force One, Ron, and I just issued a veto statement for this proposal.’”

But even as he’s preparing for life in the minority, he’s also looking at a potentially tough reelection next year. Republicans are trying to woo popular Nevada Gov. Brian Sandoval into his race, privately telling him that he would be the biggest conservative star in the country if he were to successfully take down the top Democrat who has long been vilified by the right.

“I have a tendency to agree with that,” Sen. Dean Heller (R-Nev.) said when asked about the pitch to Sandoval that he would be lionized on the right as a dragon slayer if he took on Reid. “The last thing I want to do is discourage him.”

Sandoval, who just skated to reelection with 70 percent of the vote, has not said whether he will run against Reid. Asked if he is concerned about a possible Sandoval run, Reid deadpanned: “About as much as I’m worried about you and your — I won’t say it. I’m not worried.”

“It’s not as if I haven’t had a real challenge over the years. So what? I’ve won before,” said Reid, who has survived a number of election scares, including four years ago pulling off a hard-fought, 6-point victory against Republican Sharron Angle.

“Brian Sandoval and I have a good relationship; if he wants to run, it’s a free country, let him run,” he said.

Even so, retirement rumors around Reid continue to swirl, something the Nevada Democrat is ready to put to rest. He said he is already interviewing campaign staff to build his operation and noted how other prospective foes — such as GOP Reps. Joe Heck and Mark Amodei — have said they won’t run against him.

“My opponents are dropping like flies,” Reid said confidently. “I mean, seriously.”

What Reid’s operation in the next two years looks like remains to be seen. He said his chief of staff, David Krone, “has not told me he’s leaving” in the next Congress. “His wife has a job in New York, he’ll have to make that decision,” Reid said. “He’s not the first person to have a wife someplace else.”

And whether Reid will try to continue serving as Democratic leader beyond the next Congress is also an open question. While Reid easily was reelected last month to continue running the caucus for another two years, he faced open opposition from at least six Democratic senators. With some moderates arguing it was Reid’s heavy-handed style that contributed to huge Democratic losses at the polls, it was the most public opposition Reid has faced since leading the caucus in 2005. But no Democrat dared to run against him.

“I had no opponent,” Reid said when asked whether he was bothered by the “no” votes. “They voted ‘no’ for what?”

Still, Reid refused to say whether he will run for Democratic leader again assuming he wins his reelection race in Nevada in 2016.

“My opponents are dropping like flies. I mean, seriously.”

Asked if this is his final two years of running the caucus, Reid said: “Let’s assume that’s true. Why would I tell you that? I mean, really. … I’m not thinking about it, I just got it. Why would I be thinking about that now? I mean, don’t you think I have other things to think about? That’s not one of them.”

If he doesn’t run, Chuck Schumer, the New York Democrat, is widely seen as his likely successor, though Reid wouldn’t say that directly.

“If I decide not to have this job, sometime in the future, he’d have to run just like anybody else,” Reid said of Schumer.

In the aftermath of the huge Democratic losses last month, there has been much self-reflection inside the Democratic Caucus. Schumer, for one, said Democrats “blew the opportunity” after the 2008 elections and focused on the “wrong problem: health care reform.”

Reid disagreed, saying he doesn’t regret moving on health care at all.

“I’m not going to go back,” Reid said. “I mean, we did it. … It’s the hallmark of the first six years of the administration, I think it’s a wonderful legacy for him. I spent months, weeks right in this office, making sure it got done.”

But it was the bungled website and the rollout of the Affordable Care Act last fall that Reid believed cost Democrats the majority and gave Republicans “ammunition to go after all of my candidates” — nothing else.

“We never recovered from the Obamacare rollout,” he said when asked if he believes any other factors contributed to the losses. “I’m not going to beat up on Obama. The rollout didn’t go well. We never recovered from that.”

Asked about the lessons he drew from the losses, Reid paused for a second and said: “Have a better rollout of Obamacare.”

Kelsey Snell contributed to this report.