(Amber Renee Dixon) Billed as the first full biography of one of Nevada's most powerful and polarizing politicians, The Game Changer: How Harry Reid Remade the Rules and Showed Democrats How to Fight is out now, and its author, Journalist Jon Ralston, joins us in studio this week on Nevada Week.

♪♪ -Support for Nevada Week is provided by Senator William H. Hernstadt and other supporters.

-Welcome to Nevada Week.

I'm Amber Renee Dixon.

Despite having already told his own story in a 2008 memoir, in 2021 is when former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid relented and agreed to work with a veteran Nevada journalist, one he clashed with over the years.

That journalist describes this as the definitive biography of the most interesting and powerful man he's ever covered, and joins us now.

John Ralston, CEO of The Nevada Independent and author of The Game Changer: How Harry Reid Remade the Rules and Showed Democrats How to Fight, welcome back to Nevada Week.

-Thanks for having me, Amber.

-How long have you been working on this?

Because I read you said, when that 2008 memoir came out, you were crushed.

You wanted to do that work.

(Jon Ralston) I wanted to write the book about Harry Reid.

I covered politics, as you know, for decades here, and he was by far the most interesting guy, most powerful.

And people thought like, how could this guy who comes across as kind of milk toast in public get to be as powerful?

I thought it was a great story to tell, plus he had come from this terrible, oppressive poverty and was chairman of the Gaming Commission during the mob days.

It was just a great story to tell.

And I had lobbied him and people around him for years to let me do the book.

As you mentioned in the opening, I did clash with him.

He wouldn't-- When I had a show, he wouldn't come on it for many years because he was mad at me, got mad at me for a column I wrote in the 1990s, didn't talk to me for a couple of years.

So it was an uphill battle, but he finally, I think there was a mutual respect there, Amber.

I really do.

And he finally came to the conclusion that someone really needed to go beyond kind of the gauzy autobiography that he had written with an Esquire writer and tell how he really did what he did and really put in perspective what he did, because I believe that he's the most powerful elected official in the history of Nevada.

I think he wanted that story told, and that's why.

And you used exactly the right word.

That's why he relented finally in 2021 and allowed me to write the book.

-I used that word but wondered how accurate it was, because there's an LA Times column about your book in which it says Harry Reid asked you to write this book.

How accurate is that?

-It's accurate in the sense that-- And but he did relent after, you know, giving me the stiff arm for many, many years.

And it really wasn't over anything I had written about him.

He just-- And I think his wife, Landra, who was the greatest influence on his life, and I talk about that in the book, were upset about columns I'd written about how Harry Reid used his influence to help his family.

They were very upset about that.

But then finally he summoned me to his office in the Bellagio at the time, by the way, after he was out of office.

He was working, doing some work for MGM Resorts and basically said, you know, Let's do the book.

I'm not going to like everything you write.

I know you're not going to go after my family in the book, hint, hint.

And let's get started.

And so I got-- So we got started.

-What value do you think he saw in this book?

-I think what he saw is the ability to really, as I said, put in perspective the depth and breadth of his influence, both in Nevada, which he was very, very proud of both politically building a Democratic machine and bringing hundreds of millions, maybe billions, of dollars back to the state and his influence in national politics and the skills and strategies that he used to get Obamacare passed, to get the stimulus bill passed, to get countless pieces of legislation through a very difficult process.

-What do you think about the timing of this, because the interviews you did with him for this book took place in the six months prior to his death?

Do you think he knew his time was coming?

-You know, it's tough to tell.

He had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, which is going to kill you sooner or later, and usually sooner, but they had caught it early.

He was in remission briefly, and he was still very cogent when I interviewed him, starting in May 2021 and then ending five or six months later, before he died in December of 2021.

He still had a good memory, was able to tell me some great stories.

But, you know, I think towards the end, he was getting sicker and sicker, and he knew.

But as I said, he was pretty sharp until the end.

-Who will benefit from reading this book the most?

Active politicians?

-Well, hopefully a lot of people will benefit, because hopefully it has different layers.

It's a story of Nevada, in a way, and how Nevada changed from the days where Harry Reid grew up and was chairman of the Gaming Commission during the mob-infested Vegas days and then how he changed Washington in many ways.

And you read the subtitle about teaching Democrats how to fight.

I think there are a lot of Democrats today who wish they had somebody like Harry Reid in Washington fighting against Donald Trump and the Republicans.

So I think they'll benefit from it.

But hopefully anybody who likes a good story of a guy who came from nothing and essentially was willing to go right up to the line, and some would say cross over it, to be successful, hopefully it's a good story.

-What are some of the similarities, in your opinion, if any, between Harry Reid and President Donald Trump?

-Well, somewhere he's looking down on us and yelling at you for even asking that question, Amber.

But I do think there are similarities in the sense that neither of them have self-editing mechanisms.

They just say-- Harry Reid said whatever came into to his head, and certainly President Trump has crossed some lines or gone up to the line.

But I think, I think Harry Reid had a much better ethical compass, even though some people will disagree with that description, than President Trump has.

But they were both very, very outspoken, didn't really care what people thought up to a point, and so they were willing to say whatever on their mind.

But he would hate that comparison, even though, Amber, I should say that, you know, Donald Trump supported Harry Reid early in his career.

They were friendly at a time when Donald Trump was giving to both parties and when he was a Democrat.

And so but then Reid, like a lot of people, turned on Trump after they saw what he was doing as a candidate as President.

And they didn't take him seriously, and then they had to take him very seriously.

-What was the donation amount that President Trump first gave Harry Reid, do you remember?

I read it in the book.

-Yeah.

As I remember, one of his fundraisers told me that he handed Reid a check for $1,000 like it was $100,000, like he was bestowing this great gift upon him, which doesn't that sound just like something Trump would have done?

-Isn't it strange that he would have been a supporter of Senator Harry Reid?

-Not really in the sense that back then Trump did support a lot of Democrats, and he wanted to support Democrats who could help him.

In similar-- In very different ways, actually, they were both very transactional politicians.

They saw ways to use people to get what they wanted.

Trump wanted favors from the government.

Harry Reid wanted to get legislation passed.

So he, you know, essentially was legalized bribery what he did during Obamacare to get some of his colleagues to support that.

And that has been well documented, and I fleshed some of it out in the book.

But there was a time when Trump, and who knows that that's changed, Amber, had no respect for politicians and just wanted to use them for his own ends.

-You brought up some ethical issues that Senator Harry Reid may have had.

What would be the highlight of those?

I'm thinking of Mitt Romney and accusing him of not having paid his taxes for a decade with no evidence to back that up.

-No.

But that story is fascinating in that Reid thought that was a great issue to use against Romney and went to the White House, went to the Democratic National Committee, and says, You got to use this.

You know, I've been told this.

They of course didn't want to use it, mostly for the reason that you just said, he had no evidence.

And his-- So he wanted to go to the media with it, and his staff held him back for as long as-- They said, You can't say this, Senator.

And at the end of an interview with a couple of political reporters in DC, he just blurted it out.

And then it caught fire, and he believed, until he died, that that was the reason that Mitt Romney lost the race.

And there's a famous interview that he did with Dana Bash of CNN, where she confronted him about it-- you know, Do you have any regrets?

And his reaction was very typical Harry Reid: Mitt Romney lost, didn't he?

But the real ethical issues that he faced in his life were when he was investigated by the FBI, and I didn't know as much about that.

I knew something about it, but very superficial level, until I started researching this book.

And he had requested his own FBI files, which were in his archives at UNR, and they're redacted.

But there were some serious allegations made against him for taking money at first.

And then for later, they didn't let go of him-- -When he was part of the Gaming Commission?

-Right.

And then later, even when he was in Congress--and I didn't know about this at all--even into his second term in the House, they were looking at various SEC potential violations for how he took money.

But no charges were ever brought.

He was interviewed again by the FBI while he was in Congress.

I had not known about that either.

That's in the book.

But you know people, people-- He was a polarizing figure.

You mentioned that right up front.

And there are people said, Oh, we got rich while he was a Senator, and obviously he was taking money.

Harry Reid was very wealthy when he got into Congress, and there's no evidence.

And believe me and one thing I detail in the book is that when he ran for the Senate in 1998, John Ensign's campaign got these forensic auditors to come to Nevada and try to find this because they had heard the same thing everybody else did, and they found nothing.

-Did you bring up with him when you interviewed him that he had tried to get you fired from a local TV station that you and I both worked at?

-Yeah.

He tried and eventually succeeded, by the way, Amber, with his friend Jim Rogers, who owned the station.

Then, ironically enough, he only succeeded after Jim Rogers died, and Sinclair, which is a huge company, as you know, was trying to get licensed, and he had some leverage, and he got me fired then and celebrated it over email.

These are emails I found.

-And a text message.

-Yes, exactly.

It's just amazing.

Did it come up?

It only came up when he first asked me to do the book.

And he basically said, You know the only problem I ever had with you was because of what you wrote about my family, described it as attacking his family, which I thought was not accurate.

But the funny part of that looking back on it now, Amber, is when he first called me into his office to agree to do the book, he said, You and I have something in common, Jon, we're both survivors.

And what I wanted to say, but I did not say because I wanted the book to get done, is no thanks to you that I survived, Senator Reid.

So it didn't really come up again after that.

There was no reason really to bring it up.

He had finally done what I wanted him to do for decades, which is agree to do the book, so we were going to move forward on that.

-I mean, it's juicy personal history if you had said, Why did you try to get me fired?

-But I, but I know what he would have said.

He would have-- First he would have said, You're exaggerating that, Jon.

I never did that, which, of course, I would later discover after he passed away, that, of course, that he did.

And then he would just talk about how I attacked his family, I know.

And believe me, it is actually in some ways and in many ways, a very positive attribute.

He was super protective and loyal and really loved his family and all of his kids and Landra especially.

Chuck Schumer, his successor, said to me the only time he saw Harry Reid not be the Harry Reid everyone knows is when Landra was in distress.

She was in a couple of car accidents.

She got very sick, and he was really moved by that.

And she-- That 62-year love affair is really a story in and of itself, Amber, and it's clear that she had much more influence on him, not just personally, but politically as well.

I think she essentially talked him out of voting for Clarence Thomas for the Supreme Court.

And I found a speech in the archives he was going to give supporting Clarence Thomas.

And just eight hours later or so, Landra talked him out of it.

I had an extensive conversation with her about how that came to be.

-How crucial was she to this book?

-You know, she, she was the reason, I think, he didn't talk to me for those times.

I think that she was very, very upset as a very protective mother that I was portraying that her kids couldn't have advanced without Harry Reid's help, which is who knows?

But the bottom line is those columns I thought were legitimate, U.S.

Senator using his influence to help his sons in either the public or private sector.

But was she crucial?

She was very, very helpful.

After he passed away, she agreed to do three different interviews with me at her home, and they were all great.

She was very, very accommodating.

She gave me great details that I didn't have before, helped explain him more than I thought, and really did give me insight into some of the crucial decisions that he made.

-So Landra was from a prominent Jewish family in Henderson, right?

She meets Harry Reid in high school.

He has no religion at the time, or he was being introduced to...?

-He had no religion at the time.

He was starting to understand a little bit about religion, because there was a teacher there who was a member of the LDS Church and that influenced him.

But one of the funny stories in the book is, I think at least, is that people think that would have been his introduction to Mormonism, to go and be influenced by this guy.

But one of his classmates said, You got to go to this class; that's where all the girls are.

That's how you meet girls.

So it's like the oldest high school boy's motivation in the world.

But eventually he came to embrace the faith and so did Landra.

And he was much more devout than I knew, and I learned that through the research for the book.

-What did he mean to members of the LDS Church?

Because he was polarizing on issues that were important to Mormons.

-So the first Senate race that I covered was his first Senate race in 1986.

And even then--he had been in Congress for a little while--and even then, the Mormon community was divided, because Mormons are mostly Republican, and so the partisanship took precedence over the religion.

But it grew more and more pronounced as he advanced in leadership.

Now, there was some disconnect anyway, because the Mormon Church has put out statements against gambling.

And Reid stood up for the gaming industry in DC many, many times.

But what the church came to know, and I mean institutionally the church, is that Harry Reid, being this powerful guy in DC, could help them with issues that they were having, especially if a missionary went missing.

Harry Reid would use his office to try to help them find that missionary somewhere in South America or Africa or somewhere.

He developed a relationship with an elder in the church by the name of James Faust.

And his son, Marcus Faust, became very close to him.

Marcus Faust became a lobbyist in Washington, D.C.

How close were they?

Marcus Faust presided over Harry Reid's funeral, and so it was a very tight bond.

And a Mormon elder spoke at Harry Reid's funeral.

-Senator Harry Reid was always pro-life.

How did he make that work as the leader of the Democratic Party?

-Very, very good question, Amber.

I don't think you'll ever see anything like that again on an issue that is central to the Democratic Party and in a party that has so many women who had elevated to prominent positions in the U.S.

Senate, Barbara Boxer, Patty Murray, and others who were fervently pro-choice and yet loved Harry Reid because they understood this was a deeply held religious belief that he had.

But Reid was also smart, and this is the duality of the guy: He was never going to support abortion, per se, but he would support other women's issues in Washington.

And on the fringes of the abortion issue, he would occasionally support certain policies.

But he threaded that needle pretty brilliantly and still had the support, not only of the Democratic base, but of many women who hold that issue to be paramount in elections.

-What about his views on same sex marriage?

-Very traditional views on that.

He was opposed to it early in his career, and then gradually--and this is the kind of guy Harry Reid was--he said he evolved on it when he realized that he was wrong, that it's not a choice, and essentially said, Why would anyone choose to live like that if they didn't have to, because you're going to have so much discrimination, that he actually eventually spoke at a gay staffer's wedding.

And so he changed as the world changed, as Nevada changed, and some of it, I think, was political expediency, but some of it was, you know, a lived life, a learned life, where he saw things changing, and he adapted.

And so I said this before him, but I don't think that anyone can be totally captured in words, and I don't think you can look into someone's soul or their heart and really know how they really felt.

But I think it's clear from his behavior, all he can use is his behavior and people close to him, that he really changed fundamentally on certain issues.

Immigration, of course, is another one.

He gave these speeches in the 1990s in Washington that sound like Donald Trump.

I mean, they really do.

And after chastisement from Landra, whose parents came here, perhaps illegally--it's not, it's not clear--and others and how much of that was because she yelled at him and how much of it was because there was a growing Hispanic population in Nevada that he eventually harnessed better than anyone else.

I don't know, but that is the-- And Astrid Silva, who became one of the most prominent Dreamers in the country, had a truly pure relation with him.

They had beautiful letters that she wrote to him that he read, and he spoke so highly of her.

He was influenced by people, he really was, who he made a connection with and who he thought was sincere and could illuminate things that he just hadn't thought about.

-How is the U.S.

still feeling the presence of Senator Harry Reid?

-Well, I think--and I think he was loath to admit this--I think he's partially responsible, at least for the dysfunction in Washington, D.C., his style, his smashmouth style of politics, his willingness to say anything that came into his mind, often stuff that his staff-- that drove his staff crazy and was somewhat vicious at times.

So I think he's still there.

Certainly in Nevada the ghost of Harry Reid is here in the form of the Democratic machine that still exists.

Now, people say it's not what it once was.

It's maybe not a coincidence that after four straight Presidential cycles in which the Democrats won since 2008-- They lost in 2024, first cycle after Harry Reid's death.

But the machine is still there.

They still have had other victories.

They're still, the Democratic members of Congress have remained intact despite Republican efforts to beat them, and I think that's going to continue to occur.

But the Republicans have, you know, essentially awakened and seen not just with the changes in the state, but what Harry Reid did with that machine.

They've essentially-- You know, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.

And now Joe Lombardo, the Governor, has his own machine, which was very effective in helping to elect him in 2022 and had some successes in 2024 although I think the Democratic machine existence blunted some of those.

So it's-- The ghost of Harry Reid is still here, certainly in Nevada.

You certainly know about it every time you go to the airport, because that name was changed right before he died, right?

And so, and I just think a lot of Democrats in DC miss the presence of Harry Reid because they think that the Democrats have been inert, that they have not done enough to fight against Donald Trump.

If Harry Reid were still alive, we'd be hearing stuff from him every day.

-So he changed Senate rules that allow-- Well, you explain this, and then also explain his influence on getting Obamacare passed.

-So changing rules, using what was called the nuclear option, he had a great, very, very interesting history on that whole issue, because he was very opposed to it in 2005.

And then in 2013 during Obama's second term when the Republicans were blocking his judges, Reid essentially said, they're going to ruin his Presidency, I can't let this happen, and decided to do it.

One of his staffers had gave me the most insight into this, and this is in the book, is that I think he believed that Hillary Clinton was going to be the next President, and so he didn't think of a Donald Trump who could then get three Supreme Court justices.

It's also true to some extent, I think, Amber, that Mitch McConnell would have done what he did with the Supreme Court judges, because Harry Reid only got it done for lower courts.

Whether Harry Reid had done that or not, Mitch McConnell was as much of a killer when it came to politics and legislation as Harry Reid was.

So I don't think he needed a precedent to do what he did, as much as the Republicans might want to thank Harry Reid for those justices.

As far as Obamacare goes, and this story is in the book, and it's too long to tell now, but even President Obama--I interviewed him--gave Harry Reid credit.

And Obama and Reid are very different.

Reid really admired, even loved Obama, and I think that was reciprocated eventually.

And they were very, very different guys, but Obama saw what Reid could do legislatively.

And he had to really find just a couple of votes to get that passed, and it took him a long time.

And I described it earlier as legalized bribery.

He essentially had to get these senators to do what he wanted them to do, even though Obamacare was very unpopular at the time.

And he just managed to get it passed.

And he still talks about it on Christmas Eve.

And there was a vote and a celebration afterwards.

It still took him a while to get it done completely, but I think he considers that and his environmental achievements his greatest accomplishments.

-And then there's a connection with healthcare to his personal experience in Searchlight.

Will you tell us about that?

Though, in the book, you say, you quote him: Healthcare should not be a crapshoot.

You should not-- You should be able to go to a doctor when you're sick.

What led him to say that and believe that?

-I think it was like a lot of who Harry Reid really was, was forged in his early years.

And growing up in Searchlight, it is, as I've said, inconceivable to most people what he had to live with.

It really was a shack.

There's a picture of it in the book.

There was no doctors in Searchlight.

He got really, really sick once.

I had known about this, and eventually they had to get him to Henderson to a hospital.

Never-- They never really figured out what it was, but, it was life threatening.

His brother had an accident.

His brother Larry broke his leg, and there was no one to set the leg, to give him a cast or anything.

So he just lay in the bed there, and he walked with a limp forever, because-- I think that was a searing experience for Harry to see his family, himself, his friends not have proper health care.

And so I think that did have an effect on him and helped motivate him to get healthcare passed.

-One moment that stood out to me is his mother made money by cleaning the undergarments of the brothel workers in Searchlight.

She had no teeth.

And once Harry Reid began getting some money, he bought her teeth.

-$250 I think it was he spent to buy his-- He absolutely adored his mother, and his mother was super supportive of him.

He had a very troubled home life because his dad was a very taciturn, hard rock miner who clearly was an alcoholic and eventually killed himself.

And so that was very, very tough.

But he talked so fondly about his mother.

His mother would come to all of his games--he was an athlete in high school--and he used to say that he could hear her voice above all the other ones cheering him, cheering him on.

And so that was very meaningful to him, and she was his anchor, I think, as he was growing up.

-Jon Ralston, we need to have you back on ahead of the midterms.

But in the meantime, congratulations on this book.

-Amber, thanks for having me, and thanks for that.

-And that book is called The Game Changer: How Harry Reid remade the Rules and Showed Democrats How to Fight.

For more information on it, go to vegaspbs.org/nevadaweek, and I'll see you next week on Nevada Week.

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