An unlikely friendship: Rep. Cedric Richmond and Rep. Steve Scalise

The article is basically just about where Cedric Richmond's career will go if Biden wins, but at the end it goes into the longstanding friendship between Scalise and Richmond. I had never read anything about them being close friends before so I found that interesting and refreshing to see.


https://thehill.com/homenews/house/521218-cedric-richmonds-next-move-skys-the-limit-if-biden-wins

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It was in the South where Richmond grew up and later would play baseball for Morehouse College in Atlanta. The South was also where Richmond forged one of the most unlikely friendships in politics today. He and House Minority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.) first met while serving in the Louisiana statehouse two decades ago. The two men would fight about policy by day and “in the evening we would go play basketball and we would have drinks together,” Richmond told The Advocate in Baton Rouge.

Scalise won a seat in Congress in 2008, and Richmond followed him to Washington two years later. Their friendship — and a friendly rivalry — grew each year when they faced off at the annual charity Congressional Baseball Game, where Richmond has been the dominating starting pitcher for the Democrats.

But that bipartisan friendship was tested in 2014 after reports that Scalise had addressed a white supremacist as a state lawmaker 12 years earlier. Scalise, then the House majority whip, faced calls to resign from Congress, but Richmond rushed to his defense, not only saying his close friend didn’t have “a racist bone in his body,” but also advising Scalise on how to repair his relationship with the Black community.

Fellow CBC members and other Democrats were furious at Richmond for saving Scalise’s political career; Richmond was unfazed. And in 2017, the Democrat again was there for him, rushing to the hospital after the GOP whip was nearly killed by a deranged gunman during a baseball practice.

Scalise, now the No. 2 GOP leader, hasn’t forgotten those gestures, even as he’s working to reelect Trump.

“Cedric is a dear friend who is a smart, hard-working, rising star in the House,” Scalise told The Hill. “We have been able to maintain a strong friendship despite our political differences, and still work together on issues important to Louisiana and our nation.”

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