WASHINGTON -- Democrats have signaled loudly since Donald Trump became the presumptive GOP presidential nominee last week that they intend to ride the businessman to victory in November.
Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) started trying to do that Monday, tying all of Trump's unfortunate opinions to the GOP, saying he is in effect the party's own creation.
"Donald Trump is the Republican presidential nominee. So let's think about that," Reid said in opening remarks on the Senate floor.
"The party of Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt and many other Republicans like Ronald Reagan, Dwight Eisenhower -- the party of these great men -- nominated a misogynistic, anti-Latino, anti-Muslim, anti-immigrant xenophobe," Reid said.
He went on to argue that Republican policies of obstruction for the seven years of the Obama administration paved the way because they led the GOP into taking actions based not on their merit but on whether they would impede President Barack Obama.
Reid said Trump noticed the GOP positions on immigration, Planned Parenthood and numerous other topics where there used to be room for compromise, and took up the mantle.
So he found it ironic that many Republicans are having a tough time saying they will endorse their party's standard-bearer.
"He's the nominee of the Republican Party but it's the nominee the Republican leaders deserve," Reid said.
"Republican senators need to stop waffling about Donald Trump," Reid added. "I hear a number of Republican senators say, 'I'm not going to the convention.' Well, that solves the problem, doesn't it? Republican senators need to say whether they're going to vote for this guy. The Republican Party's chickens have come home to the roost in the form of Donald Trump."
Editor's note: Donald Trump regularly incites political violence and is a serial liar, rampant xenophobe, racist, misogynist and birther who has repeatedly pledged to ban all Muslims -- 1.6 billion members of an entire religion -- from entering the U.S.
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