(Politico) — Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid believes the tea party’s days are numbered.

“The tea party will disappear as soon as the economy gets better. And the economy’s getting better all the time,” Reid said in a pre-recorded interview with NBC’s Meet the Press, scheduled to air Sunday.

Reid argued that the tea party “was born” because the economy “is probably the worst it’s ever been except for maybe the Great Depression.”

Reid survived a difficult reelection contest last year against a candidate with strong tea party ties, Republican Sharron Angle. Now back at his perch as the Senate’s leader, the Nevada Democrat came out swinging in his first television interview of the new Congress, according to excerpts provided by NBC.

In an interview with host David Gregory from his Senate office, Reid went on to call Republican efforts to repeal the health care law passed last year “a gesture in futility.”