REID HER MIND ON PREZ

PReid doesn’t think the Trump presidency is a worst-case scenario, and his ignorance is actually a protection. “It’s a learning experience,” she explained at the Variety Women in Power luncheon. “It’s a learning experience about our democracy — the strength of it, the weakness, the cracks in it — and I think we have to view it as an opportunity to fill in the cracks in the places where the structure is broken. And we’re finding out there are a lot of those places.”

The MSNBC host (inset) says she’s concerned about the precedent of a leader who violates the norms of democracy.

“What I worry about is not so much this President but somebody like this President but with policy acumen, knowledge of how government works, competency, that’s what Americans need to worry about. This could be a one-off or it could be a trend.”

Reid describes Trump as a leader who “doesn’t know how government works and doesn’t care. The fact that he isn’t interested in learning how to govern is actually somewhat protecting us from the extremes of where this kind of presidency could go.”

The Brooklyn-born talking head says America is now experiencing the political struggles that many other countries have gone through.

“We just have assumed that we’re always going to be a democracy that’s perfectly formed, and that has a President with limits. Even Nixon resigned when faced with the worst. This President is testing us, and I think what Americans need to realize is that maybe he (Trump) is a one-off, but maybe there’s a much more competent version of him out there waiting to be President. So we have to fix this stuff now,” she said.

Also at the luncheon was acclaimed Canadian author Margaret Atwood, whose book “The Handmaid’s Tale” has been adapted into a Hulu series, which returns for its second season on April 25.

Atwood says recent events have left her simultaneously optimistic and pessimistic about women’s rights.

“We’ve seen this before,” she said. “We’ve seen push and pushback. I think at the moment we’re getting both at the same time. Some people are saying we must move forward and some people are saying, ‘Oh, no, you don’t.’ . . . It’s scary.”