“Just trust me, I’ll make it happen,” Inhofe assured Trump.
Trump told Inhofe that his tweet on the matter garnered “about 95,000 positive retweets.”
“That is a lot,” he added.
A spokesman for Inhofe did not respond to CNN’s request for comment on the audio. The White House declined to comment.
Last week, the House of Representatives passed a $ 740 billion national defense authorization bill that would require the military to remove the names of Confederate soldiers and leaders from military properties across the country. The Senate version of the bill incorporates similar provisions to rename the bases for three years. Trump has said he would veto the legislation if he strips Confederate names of military bases.
In Wednesday’s call, Trump appeared to be referring to a tweet he sent on July 23 reiterating his support for keeping the names of those Confederation memorial military bases. The president said he spoke to Inhofe who, according to Trump, told him that “it is NOT going to change the names of our large military bases.”
Inhofe now pledges to uphold the provisions to remove Confederate names from military bases from the final National Defense Authorization Act, though it is unclear how this could be achieved after both houses of Congress approved similar efforts to get rid of the names with veto. test majorities last week. Inhofe, who voted on the bill in the Senate, will be one of the top four negotiators on the conference committee to draft the final bill.
“We will make sure that that provision does not survive the bill,” Inhofe told The Oklahoman. “I’m not going to say how right now.”
The fight comes as the nation faces systemic racism after George Floyd’s death while he is arrested by Minneapolis police officers. Floyd’s murder sparked widespread protests and the removal by protesters, and in some cases by city leaders, of physical symbols of racism on Confederate monuments and statues.
But there has been some resistance to efforts to rename and tear down monuments. The President has promised to keep the names in the Confederate military installations. And in a letter to cadets, faculty, staff, and alumni earlier this week, the superintendent of the Virginia Military Institute, retired general JH Binford Peay III, said that the public military institute will not change the name of any of its buildings or it will remove any of its statues with such symbolism. .
“We currently do not intend to remove the VMI statues or rename any VMI buildings. Rather, in the future we will emphasize the recognition of the Institute’s 2nd century leaders. We will place an unadorned context on value and the lessons to be learned from the Institute’s rich heritage, while being mindful of the nation’s challenges and sensitivities to being fair and inclusive to all, “Peay wrote.
CNN’s Manu Raju contributed to this report.
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