were a lot of people that didn t love harry reid for that, not just the folks who ran and worked in the brothels and they made appearances in carson city to lobby against that and it went over like a lead balloon. there was a very hostile news conference i remember with harry reid after he gave that speech to the legislature and surprised everyone. remember, there are only two urban counties in nevada out of the 17 and the other 15 where there is county options for brothels and many have brothels have power in carson city probably disproportionate to their numbers and there was quite an outcry about it. you know what? harry reid treated that the same way he treated everything else. he didn t care what the reaction was. he just decided he was going to move forward with the proposal. that was one that went nowhere but many of them proposals he made as senator franken will
station and a growing asian population, as well now in double digits and an african american population always been robust and around double digits. despite as i mentioned earlier the character of nevada as a place with the brothels and casinos, slot machines on every corner, las vegas is actually a very different city than what harry reid first got to the u.s. senate in 1986 and the state is very, very different than when he got there. he changed with the state. his story of evolution is also the story of the evolution of nevada. yeah, and i m forecasting when i saw when because i think that south carolina and nevada are going to come earlier. the dnc is talking about this now. that was no shade to you senator franken from minnesota because we know minnesota is good enough, smart enough and gosh darn it, people like minnesota.
we have a very strong party there. i think those are nevada and minnesota have two of the strongest democratic party organizations in the country. i want to talk about that because, you know, senator reid was very influential and convincing president obama to run. he was then senator obama from illinois and talked him into running for president and instrumental in submitting his legacy. i understand he wanted to encourage you to run again for senate. why was he successful with president obama and not successful with you unless you want to break news here tonight and have an announcement for us. i ran. i ran twice and i won both elections. long story. harry was very encouraging. chuck schumer was less so and harry was really the one who got behind me and i won that and
podcast we ll talk about in a minute and ceo of the nevada independent. thank you both for being here this evening to celebrate the life and legacy of senator harry reid. senator franken, i want to start with you. you recently a couple years ago traveled to nevada to interview senator harry reid. i ve been listening to your podcast all day that you did with him. yeah, oh, good. you had such a warm relationship and such a wonderful exchange because of your relationship, i m curious your thoughts. what s his legacy? his legacy is the affordable care act. that s one of the big legacies. you ll talk to john about his role in the democratic party, building the democratic party in nevada. one of the things i think you heard in the piece is the podcast helped what great sense
given that we re going into a year of midterms and 2024 we ll see how this plays out, what impact do you think that it will have on our federal elections, especially in 2024 during the presidential elections when nevada will go first before iowa and new hampshire? well, what we re hoping is that s what happens. it hasn t been officially set the stone. the arguments are there. we re not as white or all white as iowa or new hampshire or minnesota, i suppose. but hey, hey. [ laughter ] we do hope that nevada is going first but nevada would not be where it is without harry reid and that man, the so-called reid machine is essentially still in tact and building towards 2022 and then 2024 and nevada, we are a very hispanic