The secret is out and Bernie Sanders is worried — not for himself, but his conservative colleague from Oklahoma.
The Vermont senator at the CNN-TV One Democratic town hall on Sunday night revealed he is pals with GOP Sen. James Inhofe, a relationship with a snowball’s chance in … Washington, D.C.
“The irony here is — and it’s not even funny — is that if I told you the Republican I liked the most it’d probably ruin his political career,” Sanders said after some prodding from the CNN’s Jake Tapper and the audience at The Ohio State University. “There’ll be a 30-second ad — ‘Sanders said he likes this person!'”
Perhaps luckily for Inhofe, who was re-elected with nearly 70% of the vote in 2014, Sanders didn’t quite endorse his politics.
“Jim is a climate change denier. He is really, really conservative, but you know what, he is a decent guy and I like him, and he and I are friends,” the self-described democratic socialist told Tapper.
Inhofe made headlines (and launched about as many memes) in February 2015 when, in making an argument against global warming, he wielded a memorable prop on the floor of the Senate.
“In case we have forgotten,” he said, “because we keep hearing that 2014 has been the warmest year on record, I ask the chair, ‘Do you know what this is?'”
“It’s a snowball, from outside here,” Inhofe continued, before noting, “it’s very, very cold out” and lobbing the ball to the Senate president.
The Oklahoma senator is the chairman of the upper chamber’s Environment and Public Works Committee and author of “The Greatest Hoax: How the Global Warming Conspiracy Threatens Your Future.”
Sanders has described climate change as being one of the foremost threats to U.S. national security.