Sen. Cory Booker claims he recently refused to vote in support of the Green New Deal because he’s more interested in “real solutions … to deal with the climate crisis.”

The 2020 presidential candidate and Senate co-sponsor of the Green New Deal voted “present” during a roll-call vote to advance the legislation Tuesday, and CNN’s Don Lemon teed Booker up to explain why during a Town Hall in South Carolina on Wednesday.

“So you say you support the Green New Deal?” Lemon questioned.

“Yes,” Booker said.

“But just this week in the Senate a vote came up, you voted present instead of yes, and I know that members of your party say (Senate Majority Leader) Mitch McConnell is playing politics with the vote,” Lemon continued. “So if you support it, why not just vote yes?”

Booker pointed to the politics, and admitted the “present” vote by Democrats was a snub to Republicans looking to expose the Green New Deal and its supporters.

“I don’t need to play on Mitch McConnell’s terms, who until recently refused to even admit there’s even a crisis,” Booker said. “And the cynicism they are showing by not putting real plans on the Senate floor to deal with this crisis, things … that Americans agree on.”

The Green New Deal Booker allegedly supports was designed by socialist Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to “fundamentally transform” America through a government-forced “just transition” to 100 percent green energy by 2030, eliminating gas cars and planes and other contributors to the alleged climate crisis, including cows.

You Might Like

• 
• 
• 

The legislation also includes a lot of other socialist solutions, as well, from government guaranteed jobs and income to Medicaid for all, and “free” college for everyone – pie-in-the-sky proposals experts suggest will cost more money than anything ever.

The GND quickly gained steam on the left with protests encouraging House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to take it up, and all of the big-name Democrats looking to take on Trump in 2020 allegedly support it.

So Senate Republicans put the GND up for a vote, and now Booker contends they’re not interested in “real solutions.”

You Might Like

• 
• 
• 

“Mitch McConnell is not showing any ideas or unifying the Senate to move forward when there’s a lot of territory to do that,” the New Jersey senator told Lemon. “I will not play his cynical political games. I’m going to be a leader who actually puts real solutions into legislation to deal with the climate crisis.”

Unfortunately, those “real solutions” are nowhere to be found on Booker’s campaign website, which focuses entirely on why Cory Booker is so great. There’s also a sign-up to “join the team” and plenty of ways to donate money, but it’s completely devoid of any of his touted “real solutions.”

Booker, of course, isn’t the only Democrat senator who claims to support the Green New Deal but voted otherwise on Tuesday. Other Democrats running for president who also copped out include Sens. Elizabeth Warren, of Massachusetts, Kirsten Gillibrand of New York, Bernie Sanders, of Vermont, and Amy Klobuchar, from Minnesota.

Booker is the second Democrat in Washington this week to suggest the much-touted Green New Deal isn’t realistic.

“The Green New Deal is a very, very ambitious over-the-top idea to try to solve this problem, but you really need something to shock people out of their topor to say we have to do something different from what we’ve been doing,” he said. “While some of the ideas seem extraordinary, almost fantasyland, we need to have that type of aggressive ambition to really address something that’s been ignored for much too long.”