SHOCK! MSNBC Guest Blames Former Senate Leader Harry Reid For Current Senate Division

The reason the lawmakers are turning to tribalism, Hunt felt, was a reaction to a key move by Reid during his time as a senator representing Nevada.

“It started with the Democrats in Harry Reid when he took away the filibuster for those circuit court judges and it got lower when Mitch McConnell did it for the Supreme Court nominations,” she explained.

Hunt’s remarks reference Reid’s 2013 decision to adopt the so-called nuclear option, meaning circuit court nominees would only need a simple majority of 51 votes to be approved, rather than a supermajority that could reflect stronger support.

However, Reid used the nuclear option once it became clear McConnell would not allow any of President Barack Obama‘s nominees to be confirmed, thus jamming up the process. By contrast, McConnell’s decision to employ the nuclear option was based primarily on partisanship, a point underscored by D.C. political scientist Norman Ornstein, who called it a “casual and false equivalence” to compare the two. That criticism prompted a Kasie Hunt quote retweet, and subsequent discussion.