Climate change is being denied on both sides of the aisle, said West Virginia's outspoken Democrat Sen. Joe Manchin on Friday.

"We have deniers that believe we're going to run this country or run this world without fossil [fuels]," he said at a forum hosted by the Wall Street Journal. "That's a worse denier, thinking they're just going to just shift it and everything's going to be hunky-dory."

Manchin said two forms of denial are taking place. Republicans say human activity is not causing the Earth's temperature to warm, but Democrats and environmentalists have their own specific state of denial on using nothing but zero-emission fuels such as solar and wind to power the world.

Democratic presidential candidates Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton want to move the country away from fossil fuels entirely. Clinton got herself in hot water while in Ohio last month when she said she would cause more coal miners to lose their jobs if made president. The comment forced her to send off a flurry of clarifications after mining groups and lawmakers called her comments callous.

She sent a letter to Manchin explaining that what she meant was to help coal workers transition to new jobs.

Manchin, however, is not ready to vote Republican. When asked what he would do first, vote for Trump or support a carbon tax, he responded, "As Lindsey Graham says, give me poison or give me a gun."