This is real: Discovery Channel is stranding Republican and Democratic U.S. senators on a deserted island and filming what happens.
In an aisle-crossing new reality series titled Rival Survival, Sen. Jeff Flake (R-AZ) and Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-NM) must put their political differences aside and work together for six days and six nights in an harsh isolated environment.
The senators released this joint statement about the surprising venture: “Both of us know just how frustrated people are with Washington right now. We can both attest that no one is more frustrated than those of us trying to get things done in this environment. We recognize how difficult it can be to cut through the partisanship. So we decided to do something completely out of the ordinary and frankly a little extreme to show the world and our colleagues that even if you have serious differences, if you want to survive you have to work together.”
We’re told the senators, weary of partisan politics, actually approached Discovery about the project rather than the other way around. Neither man is up for re-election.