Will Raphael Warnock Hear the Call?

Welcome to Plad Save America.

I'm John Favre.

“This Sunday, Georgia Senator Raphael Warnock.”

Senator Warnock stopped by the studio earlier this week. We talked about the Supreme Court's gutting of the Voting Rights Act. His trip to an ice detention center in Georgia, the Democratic Party, all the topics you'd expect in a conversation with the Democratic Senator.

But we also had a surprisingly candid and really enjoyable conversation about faith, religious faith, faith in our political system, and faith in America. We also talked about the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King. As many of you know, Reverend Warnock

serves at the senior pastor at Ebenezer Baptist Church, which is the same congregation that Dr. King once led. The Senator spoke openly about JDVans lecturing

Pope Leo on theology, increasing political violence in America.

The discipline required to build and sustain a political movement as successful as the civil rights movement. And we even talked about what it would take for a Reverend like him to discern a call to run for president. And I will say, he did not close the door to a run.

We'll get to that conversation in a moment. But before we do, the cricket con pre-sale begins next week, starting Tuesday, May 12th. Friends of the pod subscribers can purchase tickets to Cricket Con and receive a special subscriber

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All right, here's Senator Raphael Warnock. Senator Warnock, welcome back to the show. Great to be back with you. So you've written a book coming out next month. That's a sermon on Isaiah for America's 250th birthday.

So before I ask anything about the news, I want to ask you about Isaiah. And why this profit, why this text and why now? Well, thank you so much. I think I should tell your viewers

that honestly, I didn't tell you to ask me about my new book. You know, I saw that was coming out. And I was like, I know it's a little bit too. But this fast, I've been very into thinking a lot, especially around the Americas 250th.

And everything with what the Pope was doing, too.

“And it's just I've gotten into that mindset.”

So when I saw that you were writing that book, I was like, I can ask about that. Well, you know, I return every Sunday morning to my pulpit. I still lead Ebenees of Baptist Church without the King preached.

And I have been preaching a sermon literally for the last few years in my own pulpit and pulpit's all across the country, churches, some temples, and some other places, rural communities. Anyway, but it's based on this line from Isaiah

that Dr. King used to quote sometimes in his sermons. Every valley shall be exalted. Every mountain and hill made low. The crooked places shall be made straight. And the rough places smooth and the glory of the Lord

shall be revealed and all flesh shall see it together. It's a kind of a vision of the land. It's a grand vision, what I call a moral topography, a new way of thinking about who we are for one another, a reimagining of ourselves.

And so I've got this book coming out. Thanks, John, on June 16th, called the Cricket Places made straight reflections on the moral meaning of America. As we go into the 250 of anniversary, I use these sort of images, wonderful environmental images,

if you will, as a way of talking about equity. You know, the valley shall be exalted. Mountains made low. Putting us on a level playing field. Cricket Places made straight.

Talk about integrity. Rough places smooth possibility and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed and everybody will get to see it together inclusivity. So equity, integrity, possibility, inclusivity.

And I use that as a kind of values proposition or moral lands through which they engage. Some of the big issues that have been at the center of our politics, including poverty, climate change, mass incarceration, a whole range of issues.

And I invite Americans to join me in that conversation. When you look around today in 2026, what are the Cricket Places that you see? Oh, God, the Cricket Places all over the place. And you know, we see it at the center of our politics.

There's a kind of moral right that's

It's all the way from the White House on down. And you're seeing this infection. And it's impact and negative ways.

“The grift, the ways in which there's always been corruption.”

But my goodness, the unabashed, unapologetic corruption that we're seeing coming out from this White House. And the ways in which it has set the tone for others, just not to tell the truth. And I don't know where to start.

But we're seeing that we're seeing a president who is literally dismantling the country and literally selling it for parts. And enriching his own family and the process. And I just think that we're in a moral moment

where people are looking for leaders who are thinking about something other than themselves. I'm a Christian preacher, Jesus, said that if you seek to save your life, you'll lose it. But if you lose your life, me, if you give your life

over to something bigger than you, you'll find something greater and lock the eye. I believe that. And it's what informs my work as a public servant. It's about moral right.

You've also written that we suffer from a poverty of moral imagination. Who's imagination is impoverished?

“Well, I think that you see it at the center of our politics.”

You know, folks are always telling us the things we can't afford.

And then we look at, you know, we can't afford health care. You know, a few months ago, we were debating health care premiums in this country. And we were trying to get them to expand the premium tax credits for their affordable care act.

And they kept telling us, oh, we can't afford to do that. And so as a result of that, literally the health care costs for millions of Americans, some 22 million Americans, doubled on average for some tripled, quadrupled. We can't afford health care.

We can't afford child care. In fact, we heard Donald Trump literally say into the mic, we need to think anybody would be listening. We can't afford that. Say we can't afford child care.

In fact, he said Medicare, Medicaid and security. He talked about all these things as if, you know, these are special interest groups and not the people who, by the way, it's their money. I mean, I love it when politicians talk about the people's

money like his theirs. We can't afford all of that. We're just going to, all we can afford, he said, was the military. And so we heard him say that.

And we're watching him literally live out that basic sick and flawed premise. So we're now in another ward in the Middle East at the cost of one to two billion dollars a day, depends on whoever you ask and so far with the money we've spent

bombing Iran. We could have paid for pre-K for four-year-olds all across the country. And not only educated these children, I'm a big fan of zero to four investments

because that's where the real power is. You'll never be a smart. I hate to tell you, you're a pretty smart guy.

You'll never be a smart as you were when you were four.

I mean, that's where I have a five-year-old. So that's where it is. And then allowing the parents to get to work so that we increase the productivity and the prosperity of our country.

So we suffer not from a poverty of resources, but a moral imagination without the king called a revolution of values is what we need.

“And that's what I work for in the Senate.”

It's what I preach about on Sunday morning. And it's what I talk about in this book, the quickest places made straight. Is the poverty of moral imagination? Obviously, it's clearly a problem with Trump,

with the White House, with a lot of elements that are probably compared to right now. Is there a problem for the left for the Democratic Party at all? Sure, absolutely. And I think we've been told for a long time

that we're about the things we can't do. And at someone who came of age during the Reagan Revolution and then the days after that, I'll tell you,

the first time it really became real to me

that the issue was really not resources. Was when we went into those first endless wars in the Middle East. Or the unnecessary war against Iraq. And for the first time, I realized,

oh, it really ate about the money. Because if it were, we wouldn't be bogged down doing this.

here we are again.

And so yeah, your question is it on the left?

“I think all of us have been told a bill of goods.”

And I think that, yeah, I'm concerned about the deficit, the national debt, like everybody else. But literally we've gone into endless wars, cut taxes for people who don't need it.

I mean, people who are literally at the top. And meanwhile, Donald Trump has literally raised taxes for everybody else. And it's just interesting to me how Republicans don't even talk about the national debt when they're in charge,

when they're in control. They control the White House, the Senate House, and the Supreme Court. Have you noticed they're not talking about the national debt? No, we get a Democratic president.

They'll start talking about it again.

And then I just think, I think, on a whole range of things, housing, for example, we just need to go bigger. I'm proud of the fact that we passed the road to housing bill out of my committee, the Banking Housing and Urban Affairs Committee.

“By the way, a little glimmer of hope in these dark times,”

Tim Scott is the chair of the committee. Elizabeth Warren is the ranking member. Can you imagine that Tim Scott and Elizabeth Warren went into a bar? [LAUGHTER]

I came in with a housing balance. So I was like, you're getting a bad joke. And yet, that bill passed our committee unanimously. Every Republican, every Democrat, voted for it. Passed the Senator of a woman.

We will see what the folks do in the House. I'm proud of it. It caps my provision. Caps what private equity has been doing here in California. And Georgia, all across the country, literally swooping in

the communities buying up so much housing stock and running it. And sending the prices up for people who are trying to rent and people who are trying to buy. I got other great provisions in the bill. As proud as I am of that bill.

In a time when we're facing a affordability crisis, affordable housing, it will help. It will help a lot, but not enough.

We're 5 million units short.

And I just, on housing, it's a supply-side problem. And I think that comes moments. And there are particular problems in the world where sometimes government, which is certainly not the answer to everything.

But sometimes government is singularly uniquely situated to help with certain problems to get things going. And so one of the things I'd like to see is for us to go much bigger than what we see even in an incredible bill and glad that I'm

hoping it's going to get past. But I hope when we're in power, we will invest more. Maybe the government ought to get into buying or building houses and then selling it to the people. But we've got to get this thing going.

The average age right now, the first time homeowner is 40. And so we, whether you're talking about affordable housing or health care or just wages that are stagnant, wages are stagnant, prices are going up. People are experiencing a material deficit

“that I think that has left them deeply, deeply frustrated”

and demoralized quite frankly. And that in turn has created the context for this kind of spiritual sickness as I see it in our country of kind of of spiritual malady that lets someone like Donald Trump emerge.

It's when people are desperate. When people's needs are not met, that they are open to the lives of a demagogue who says, you know what your problem is, is your neighbor. It's that other person over there.

And the deep cynicism that sets in like gangrene in the body politic, we need moral medicine. We need leaders who will tell us who we are when we stand together. - You, you preach at Ebenezer last Sunday on the Supreme Court's decision in Calais,

just the voting rights case from Dr. King's pulpit. You know, you called it a Jim Crow method. Talk a bit about that sermon. What did you say to your congregation on that day and why did you say it?

- Well, you know, I come from a tradition where we can't remain silent when that kind of thing happened. I don't know what I was playing a priest before that decision came down,

but after came down, I had to address it. Let's be really clear that what we witnessed in that Supreme Court decision is a devastating and massive blow to all of the progress we made that was led by Martin Luther King Jr.

And the sad irony is that the people who are cheering that decision right now who can't contain their glee, come January, they will stand up

all across this country and extol the virtues

of a Martin Luther King Jr. that they've created in their mind. You cannot remember Dr. King in January

“and spend the rest of the year dismembering his legacy.”

The Voting Rights Act of 1965 is the crown jewel achievement of the civil rights movement. Without which, I'd literally would not be sitting here with you right now as a United States Senator from Georgia.

And you would not have a congressional black caucus as large as it is. We wouldn't be living, we wouldn't be living as much as we are. And to what I see as the creed of this nation, E. Plurpus Unum out of many, one.

They are trying to remake this country into their dystopian racist Jim Crow image. They are too many political hacks on the Supreme Court. And they're doing the bidding of this president who's trying to stay in power at all costs.

He knows that Americans are not buying what he's selling. He told him that he was going to lower their costs. That he's raised them.

“He told him that he was going to keep us out of war.”

He took us into another war. And so we have to be full-froated and fighting for voting rights because while there are other issues, the democracy itself, the ability to have a voice, that's the framework in which we get to fight

for all the other things that matter. And so I was deeply, deeply disappointed, but not surprised by this decision. The Supreme Court has been working on dismantling voting rights for years.

It's certainly one other tragic moment was Shelby versus Holder in 2013 when they hobbled section five. And now section two. I don't want to go on and on about this, but sorry for the long answer.

But you know, when they really should go back

and look at what happened after their first decision.

In 2013, you had Shelby versus Holder. And that was about section five. And John Roberts, who has appeared to be the umpire, who just sort of calling balls and strikes,

“I think he has tarnished his legacy greatly.”

And the Supreme Court-- - This has been his project for a while. This is what we've learned that this is clearly his project. He said we don't need this anymore. And Ruth Bader Ginsburg, God bless her memory.

She said in her dissent that doing what we're doing in section five is like getting rid of your umbrella in a rainstorm because you're not getting wet. And her words proved to be prophetic. Everybody's inclined, everybody has a right to their own opinion,

not their own facts. Here are the facts. Since they dismantle section five and 2013, the racial voter turnout that gap is actually widened. And I just think it's important to emphasize that

because I think it's easy, even for people on our side, to look and see me sitting in this chair and not know that the turnout-- the voting turnout gap has widened in the years since 2013. And it is widened twice as fast in the states

that used to be under pre-clarenance, that are no longer under pre-clarenance. In other words, they're not the only ones, but the same states, and I love George. But the same states, I represent George.

The same states that were discriminating prior to the 1965 within hours-- - Find new ways. - They start doing things that make the lines longer and black and brown communities purging people

from the voter roles, which George's last two secretaries of state have been very good at, and all of these things. And now, so that had an impact on people showing up because it gets to access, right? And then the decision last week says,

and in fact, that even when you show up, after you overcome those barriers, and you show up, we're going to mute your voice. We're going to minimize your voice, so it won't have the same impact by playing with the lines.

And that's since it's a one-two punch. And all Americans who love our country, even with his flaws, but who believe in that basic creed, one person, one vote,

who believe in we, the people, the first three words

of the Constitution, as I do, we all ought to be deeply concerned, and we ought to be fighting

And one of the best ways to do that, for folks who are asking, is to mobilize voters. By part of how we can at least mitigate this gerrymandering that we're going to see is, is to overwhelm them by showing up. - Yeah.

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(upbeat music) In response to the ruling, you said that you're tired of racism. And I'm just wondering, for you personally, as a pastor, a black man, a human being, what does that tiredness feel like

to keep fighting this fight and watch these civil rights laws

“get unwound peace by peace and you've been fighting for so long?”

- Yeah, well, one title you left out is father. I'm a father of a nine-year-old and a daughter and a seven-year-old and anybody who knows me knows that those are the two brightest stars in my universe by far.

And so when I say I'm tired, part of what I'm saying is, I can't believe that my children are gonna be wrestling with this, that they have managed to be born at a time when we're witnessing some things that I didn't have to experience it.

I lived most of my life under the protections of the voter rights law. They're stepping into a world without it. And so here we are, and a time when things that we would associate with a much darker period

are literally, it's a 21st century fight. The fight against Jim Crow is now 21st century fight, but I refuse to be, I get tired and that's true.

and your emotions, but here's what we can't afford to do.

We can't, we cannot afford to give into those who are trying to weaponize despair. 'Cause that's part of what this administration is up to. We can talk about all the policies. And as we learn tragically last week,

we'll win some, we'll lose some. We'll win some elections, we'll lose some, we'll win some policy fights, we'll lose some. But here's the fight we cannot afford to lose, the fight for your spirit.

We cannot allow those who wanna weaponize despair to win. We can't allow them to convince us that they've already won. And so that there's no need to fight. And here's why I'm a blessed man.

I was John Lewis's pastor.

And, you know, I got to know him.

I used to visit his wife when she was sick. I've spent time at his home. I presided over his funeral.

“And I think about him crossing that Edmund Pettas Bridge.”

And to even zoom out even more about how he ended up on that bridge. After they passed the civil rights law of 1964, Dr. King went to see President Johnson. And Johnson rightly, as you might imagine,

was happy, say, look, we passed civil rights bill. And Dr. King said, great. I need a voting rights bill. (laughing) Did not even skip a beat.

Great. Go ahead, patch someone to back next. Guess what?

I need a vote of rights bill.

And LBJ began to say, I get it. But we can't do that right now. There's no way we can get that passed. Right now, I don't have the power. He said, you know, the political capital,

I had to spend to get that done. Martin, I just don't have the power to do it right now. And they left the meeting, the staff was feeling all demoralized and ejected, and the young, by the way, told me the story.

He said, we're all feeling demoralized. And somebody said, to Dr. King, what are we going to do? The President of the United States just told us that he didn't have the power to get us voting rights. And Dr. King just sort of shrugged his shoulders.

And he said, you know, if the President doesn't have the power, I guess we're going to have to go and get him, so I love it. And they did. And they did.

So they went the Selma to get the President some power. Now, the King understood that it's not about the people and powers, about the power and the people.

“And that's how John Lewis and others ended up”

on that bridge. And crossing that bridge with brute force under the color of law. On the other side of that bridge, ready to bludgeon them before they allowed them to vote.

And John Lewis and so many others kept marching. They kept walking. They had no reason. I think it's easy for us to forget that. Those of us who were post civil rights generation babies.

And then just the easy story, we Americans tell ourselves, right? There was no reason for them to believe that they could win. Those victories were not inevitable. They were quite improbable. I'm so glad that John Lewis and so many others kept walking.

And so my advice to us in this moment, keep walking. Keep walking. We've been talking about the moral and political arguments surrounding racism and voting rights and democracy. One surprising trend in the Trump era

is that according to election results, racial polarization has declined over the last decade. Largely because a small but not insignificant share of black men, especially younger black men, have stopped voting for Democrats.

Some are staying home, I'm sure voting suppression, voter suppression has clearly played a role. But more also actually voting for Donald Trump, he doubled his support among black voters between 2020 and 2024.

And clearly some of these young men are hearing something from Trump and the right that they are not hearing from us.

“And I wonder, as a pastor, what do you think they're hearing?”

And what have we failed to say? No, it's a great question. And we got to engage and we have to resist the false dichotomy between standing up for women and standing and being a very clear voice against misogyny.

And sexism which I talked about at least a couple of Sundays ago and that's in my pulpit. And at the same time, seeing the ways in which men and young men in particular and young black men and unique ways and Latino men are hurting.

It's a whole range of issues. I think so many of our young people feel demoralized. I think about what I was able to do. As a kid, I grew up in public housing.

I'm one of seven boys in my house.

And the first college graduate--

and I'm grateful that I had a path. You know, it'd be hard for me to do what I did now than it was for me as a kid growing up in '80s. First college graduate in my family. One of 12 total kids earn 40 degrees, coming out of projects,

become the pastor of fairly famous church, becoming United States Center. It'd be hard for me to do that now. And I think people feel that. And young men feel that in a particular way.

And they feel demoralized.

“And I think we have to find a way to be really clear and full”

throw it in our condemnation of sexism, misogyny, sexual abuse. I talked about all this stuff a couple of weeks ago. It's I do all the time.

While at the same time, just talking about the agency

that all of us have and create opportunities for men and for our boys, I think I've got a seven-year-old boy and a nine-year-old girl. I just want them to be okay. And I think sometimes we get caught up in our jargon

on the left. And people sometimes don't know what the heck you're talking about. I think speaking plain English, 'cause we're more often than not, our policies would actually be more helpful. Right?

Well, you got to speak plain English to folks. You know, one of the things that I've been talking about for years has nothing to do with any political ambition, something that comes from deep experience.

“I've been talking about mass incarceration.”

And there's not enough talk about that even on our side, not nearly enough, and I raise it inside the democratic caucus from time to time. I'm worried, for example, about these detention centers that are being built.

I'm worried about the implications for the immigrant community. And by the way, I went to social circle, George, and I said, "No, let's do it." I could tell you. But it's a red town where they're building a 10,000,

they bought a warehouse, they want to put a 10,000 bed detention center in a 5,000 citizen town. And those folks, even, they voted for Trump, they didn't vote for that, right? But I'm worried about what that means.

Think about our government's getting ready to wear house human beings, literally put them in a warehouse, 10,000 people, by the way, across the street from elementary school. And we're going to do this all over the country. It's a moral atrocity.

But here's what I also know from our recent history.

And when you build that kind of infrastructure, you're going to use it. And so it's immigrant communities today. I'm worried that it will probably be black and brown folks tomorrow, particularly young men.

We're the mass incarceration capital of the world. Over the last 40, 50 years, and a year since Dr. King died, the land of the free is become the mass incarceration capital of the world. We're 4% of the world's population.

We wear house 25% of the world's prisoners. This is played itself out over decades, and communities like in Baltimore and Philadelphia, and in Atlanta, South Central LA. And we're under Republican and Democratic administrations

over onus men have been wear housed.

“And now I think we're seeing some of the children”

of those men who've been wear housed. And the impact of that is a kind of a social long COVID that we're experiencing in our country. And I think somebody's got to find a way we have to talk to that and give people spaces where they can talk.

I do it in my church. But I think we've got to find a way to do it. Yeah, it felt like we were for a while on a path where even folks on the right were willing to do something about rehabilitation, prison reform

reform. And now we are in this situation where we're back to showing that you got to be sure that you're very tough on crime as if we can't be tough on crime, and also not be the mass incarceration capital of the world.

Yeah, I mean, for all of those prisons. And again, we have more prisons than anybody in the world. I mean, think about that. United States of America, wear houses more of its people,

and a greater percentage of its people

than any other nation on the planet, including those who's human rights records, we love to deploy. So thank North Korea. Think, Iran, think China, we got more people.

And that's the policy that we followed again through Republican and Democratic administrations for decades. Our country could have decided in the wake of the post-industrial change that we saw

as we move from an industrial nation to the post-industrial era to a service economy. We could have invested in training our young people, getting them ready for that new economy that was emerging. And instead, we invested in the infrastructure of death

and incarceration, and we're seeing the results of that. And I, you know, what I would like to see us do in this moment as we look at these new emerging technologies AI, which ain't going anywhere, and a whole range of things. How do we get our kids ready?

How do we invest in children? So that no matter what zip code you're from, there's a path to the American dream, your parents, income, done determine your outcome. That's what I mean when I say we suffer

not from a poverty of resources, but of moral imagination. We need to reimagine who we can be. This hasn't been a couple of minutes ago, it's stuck with me about agency.

“And I think it's so important, and you also talked”

about some of the jargon and the Democratic Party's language. I wonder sometimes, like, do you ever worry that the Democratic Party's argument that the system is structurally rigged against people, which has a lot of truth to it, right?

Do you worry that sometimes that can tip into being disempowering because it somehow robs people in that story of agency to fix the system? Well, I don't know that they need us to tell them that. They're living it.

Every people, every day people know that the system is stacked against them. They know it in their bones.

And they don't always have the words that we want to use.

They know it, do they feel like they can change it? They feel it. Yeah, I think that's the thing.

“That's the thing, do people feel empowered to change it?”

And I do think that there are a lot of people who feel powerless, which is why they signed up for Donald Trump. You asked me that question earlier. Let me ask it, answer it more directly. I think that there are people.

And I do think it's overstated. Donald Trump didn't have those hooves. Huge slew of black men voting for them. I think part of that was a game. They played during the election in 24.

I think they were trying to create a permission structure. A bandwag, it's so people would jump on it, but they were not overwhelming. It was one as too many. But they weren't overwhelming numbers of black men voting for Donald Trump. But I do think that people feel the ways in which the powerful and the well-connected

have the cards. And in that situation, you do create the context for someone like Donald Trump with this dystopian vision of the country emerging.

Here's what the Trump voters and Bernie Sanders voters had in common.

They're looking for somebody to tear the thing up, because they're just like, look, it's not working. And they came to different conclusions.

“But I think people do feel some of that.”

And I've seen it up close. And now that I'm in the Senate, when we passed the inflation reduction act, the largest clean energy bill and investment in human history, also the thing we did there was prescription drugs. We kept the cost of prescription drugs.

My own bill kept the cost of insulin to no more than $35 a lot of pocket calls for seniors. And in that bill, for the first time, Medicare was empowered to force the pharmaceutical companies to have to negotiate the price of prescription drugs. So just think about that. We had to pass a law.

So that Medicare... >> And do the other bad law that we passed. >> Yeah, it does. >> But what kind of capitalism is that for folks, what kind of capitalism is that? Where the seller gets to tell you the price of something and you don't get to discuss

What kind of capitalism?

But that shows you how rigged the system is.

And so we addressed it. We passed the bill, so Medicare couldn't negotiate. How many drugs? 10. 10 whole drugs.

And then that wouldn't go into place for a few years after we did it. It shows you that the voices of the people are increasingly squeezed out of their democracy. Big money, well-connected folks, having outsized voice in our politics, which is why even when there's agreement on things on the left and the right, like universal background checks for example, in the gun safety debate, we can't get it done.

Because the politics too often is owned by somebody other than the people. And the people feel it.

“And I think they're looking for folks who will champion their concerns.”

I'll tell you, I can only speak for myself. I love this job. I love being a United States senator.

I mean, first of all, it's a deep honor, literally for 11 million people that I represent

in the state of Georgia, you know, that I get to represent them. And once we didn't vote for them, I get to fight for those. Most of those people in the social circle of Georgia, when they're detention centers, they're Trump voters. But I get to stand up to the administration that they elect it to fight for them.

I love this job. You know, I'm a, you know, it's it's who I am. I love to serve. But while I'd like to get reelected, so I can continue to serve, I don't want this job enough to sell my soul.

You know, like, I have an identity outside of being a senator. I'm a pastor. I'm the father of two amazing little children who were 9 and 7 and they're constantly telling me what to do. I, you know, I'm a lot of things.

And I was an activist before I did, I got, I got, I got, I got arrested in the building where my office is before I had an office. I got arrested. There was an activist.

“Well, also building, I believe, named after a Georgia senator, who's like an arch segregationist”

that now that you sit in his seat. Yeah. Yeah. So I guess what I'm saying to you is, I love this job, but I don't need that bad. Yeah.

And I do think we need more. We could use more leaders who who love doing the work, but they don't need it. Yeah. That is the way we do need that. Pots of America is brought to you by Sundays.

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can use code. Cricket 50, a checkout that's 50% off your first order at Sundays for dogs.com/cookadfifty, Sundays for dogs, dot com/cookadfifty, or use code cricket 50 a checkout. You've fed something a few weeks ago to my pal Jen Psaki that stuck with me which is that when JD Vance told the pope to be careful, stay in his lane, I know it drove me

insane. You said that... I didn't just roll my ass. That's not... You know, I was doing the worst of that.

That's what it passed. That's what it's all about.

“Well, you made a comment and you said that's how fascist talk.”

And you also brought up, uh, rike Christians who are the German pastors who capitulated to Hitler by deciding the appropriate place of the Church was in personal piety, not in systemic injustice. Let's into what made you draw that connection. When you say someone like Vance is talking like fascist, when you mention Bonhoeffer and

the rike Christians as a comparison, like where does that argument come from in you? What is the tradition that you're drowning on there? Well, you know, I've been thinking about faith in politics for a long time.

I wrote a thesis on King and Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Bonhoeffer was part of the very little

Christian resistance that Hitler got. Most of the church in Germany capitulated to Hitler. They became rike Christians and so, you know, uh, no two periods are the same and I'm not, you know, conflating it in that sense, but they're lessons to be learned. Um, I have to say that that, in my view, JD Vance is one of the most craven politicians

on the American landscape. Uh, here is someone who literally said that Donald Trump is America's Hitler. And then he actually ran a campaign to become his running mate. He ran a campaign focused on one to be his running mate.

So if Trump is, is America's Hitler and then he campaigned to be his running mate, what

does that make JD Vance?

“Um, I think we saw a glimpse of, of, of that Cravenness in recent weeks when JD Vance”

who is a recently converted Catholic had the unmitigated audacity to lecture the Pope on how to be the Pope. Um, the, the Pope is, is doing what, what we need more religious leaders to do. And that is to bring a kind of moral question to who we are and, and he was literally advocating for peace, imagine that, and I, I just, which is what all the Pope's do.

Yes. I just, I, I, well, you know, I, I just couldn't help but be struck by JD Vance, the newly

converted Catholic who wrote a whole book about his conversion, uh, which is interesting.

Um, then, then, then turning around and saying that, you know, when the Pope was talking about theology, he ought to be careful talking about theology. He ought to be, he ought to stay in his lane. What are you talking about? It's fascinating to me, even from a, a theological perspective, and, and you hit on it.

And obviously, this, this was, this was your thesis, but this sort of divide between personal piety and systemic injustice. And you could tell from what JD Vance was saying.

“And I think this is the case with a lot of the more recently converted Catholics who are”

on the right evangelical Christians. The focus is very much on personal morality, sexual morality. And, um, it, very little on the larger moral questions, as you, say in your book, the moral topography of, of the world. And I do find that to be a, if I need to be clarifying.

And also perhaps something that, you know, that the left can kind of rally around. And I wonder if you think, sometimes you worry that Democrats have sort of seated the territory, uh, in terms of using more spiritual religious language, regardless of what your faith actually is. Um, in a time where you have people like Vance and Trump, you know, attacking the Pope.

And then Democrats kind of have to just, except for you, and a couple of others have to just

“kind of sit back and watch because they don't, they're not familiar with that link.”

I worry about it deeply and it's something that I, that I, that I'm, I'm thinking about a lot, because we have the historical lesson, right? And I don't, I keep going, I don't want to keep going here, you know, because no two, historical peers are alike, but it was Vainjati Mans who said that Trump is America's Hitler. So he said, um, the, the historical lessons are there.

The, the church in Germany, uh, retreated into this very narrow, getoized view, privatized view of the faith, where faith is just limited to issues of, you know, maybe interpersonal relations and personal piety, but we're going to let the state carry on in, in our name and do all kinds. So we already, we already know the lessons of that. We don't have to go to Germany.

That's the lessons of the American Christian slaveocracy, also, uh, which was built on the premise that we were enslaving human beings, but we're saving their souls. So it's all right. Matter of fact, we're doing them a favor. And so there is dangerous for people of faith, for people of moral courage, who claim no

faith tradition at all, to see these larger questions about the society and about how it's arranged and who gets crushed and who done is dangerous for us to leave that to potentates,

issues to let the right dominate the space about faith and values, particularly since in my view,

“they've got so much of it, so very wrong, um, you know, Donald Trump recently depicted himself as”

Jesus Christ. I guess putting his names on the building, one enough, he's now king of kings and Lord of Lords. And, um, I have, you know, I have to call it out because it's, it's blasphemy. And it's a deep, deep distortion. I'm a Matthew 25 Christian. Jesus came to feed the hungry. Donald Trump is taking food out of the mouths of hungry children through these draconian snapcuts. Jesus spent much of his life healing the sick.

Donald Trump is taking their health care away. And, um, so we have to condemn his actions.

And we have to condemn his speech. I thought it was interesting that there were faith leaders, even some in his camp who came out and, you know, rightly criticize him, depicting himself

“as Jesus Christ, congratulations to them for that. But, but, but it's not enough just to condemn”

that the picture and say nothing about his policies. Because his policies are far more blasphemous than the picture. Or even in that same weekend, some of them can then the picture, but those same people did not condemn the, we're going to eradicate a civilization and, and the threats of the war crimes. And, which is just as blasphemy. Oh, he literally said a whole civilization will die tonight. And, you know, we've all heard Donald Trump's bluster over the years, but, you know, we can't

dismiss that, you know, you know, because, because it's, it's dangerous talk. It undermines the credibility of our nation and in, in the, on the, you know, on the globe, it undermines America's voice. It's more credibility. It's, it's doing a whole lot of damage. I mean, can we stand together no matter what you're on the left order right and say, we don't want an American president who talks like that. And, and acts like that as well.

One fellow Democrat, who hasn't seated that, that territory is James Telerico, the 36-year-old Presbyterian seminarian from Texas, was running for Senate. He's named you publicly as, as a role model, said he wants to follow your playbook to Flipper Red State. You said back in March that you hope we'll have yet another pastor in the United States Senate. Why, why does it matter to have another pastor in, in that chamber? What, what is, what is having more pastors in the Senate? What is that

“bringing to the country? One of something I think about all the time because I think it ought to”

make a difference. I don't think it automatically will. You know, like I asked myself all the time, what difference does it make that you're standing here as a pastor and as a pastor of Ebeneezer Church? And that's an asset test that I bring to myself as I look at what I'm going to vote this way or that way, where I'm going to fall on this policy or that. I can tell you that when I was running for the Senate in Georgia, there were those who cautioned me and said, I don't know about you wearing

your identity as a pastor so clearly and on apologetically, you're going to, you know, alienate certain voters. And I don't know who else to be other than myself. And I, you know, you know, I'll tell you that that the folks who, you know, they put around me because I was

running for office. I never run for office before. My comps team used to put this thing on my,

on my memos when I'd get ready to do interviews and that kind of thing. It said remain to rev and remain to rev. And every time when I was seen that, I would laugh, I'm like, well, what else am I going to be? Like, I'm glad you didn't tell me to be somebody else because I don't know who else to be the instruction of the other than myself. But, you know, I, I, I, um, I talked about my faith, but I hope in a way that doesn't feel oppressive to people who don't share my particular faith

tradition. You know, what I'm always trying to do is open, open the, the, the, the, the, the, the, widen the tip of the tent so that, um, everybody is a part of it. And, um, what I discovered was that the people of Georgia found that refreshing both Democrats and independent, and I think Republicans gave

of moral courage in this moment. Um, and so some of those people will be clergy, um, um, some will not be clergy, some will be Christians, some will be Muslims, some will be Jews, Hindus, Buddhists, Sikhs, some will claim no particular faith tradition at all, um, but they will, you know, have a vision of our common humanity. Um, and it's an important question because let me, let me,

let me be really clear. Here's what I'm really clear about. I don't want to live in anybody's

“theocracy. So I, I bring my values and not my creeds to my work as a senator and I think those values”

are resonant in all the great faith traditions and those who claim no faith tradition at all. I'm, I'm talking about love. I'm talking about compassion, empathy, truth telling, um, empathy in the words of Isaiah who said a little child shall lead them, looking, looking into the eyes of other people's children and having enough moral capacity to see in the eyes of other people's children, even your adversaries, a glimpse of your own. Um, that's the kind of politics I'm talking about.

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plan options available taxes and fees extra, cement mobile for details. Dr. King was the apostle of non-violence in this country. It was as theological as much as it was a political strategy. He believed non-violence was the only force in the universe that could break the cycle of violence. We are living right now through a moment of rising political violence on the right and on the left. Paul Pelosi, the Minnesota legislature, legislators,

United Healthcare CEO, Charlie Kirk, the multiple Trump assassination attempts, including one of the correspondence center a few weeks ago. What do you think King, the apostle of non-violence in this country, would say to America right now? He used to say that a, you know, an ethic of an eye

“for an eye leaves everybody blind. And, you know, I think that's an important lesson in this moment,”

which is why, you know, in the days after a day or so after Charlie Kirk was killed, I decided to go to the floor of the United States Senate and condemn that killing. I've condemned other forms of violence, certainly against Paul Pelosi and others, but I thought it was particularly important for me to do that after Kirk's killing. So that, that I could say as a moral voice, that political violence is not acceptable.

You cannot have a democracy and political violence. Political violence is the opposite of democracy. We, we have loud, robust and sometimes ram bunkers, arguments in the American public Square and we have those arguments, if we're thinking about it right, not as a precursor to violence, but we have those arguments instead of violence. And so I said that day when I went to the floor of the Senate that I disagreed with Charlie Kirk on almost everything, I mean he had

to dare to ask whether or not Dr. King was a good force of good in the world. I don't agree with that with with with with with that man about anything. But guess what, he had a right to think what he thought in America and he had a right change his mind or not. And I genuinely mourned the idea that

consistent what is deeply disappointing, again unfortunately, not surprising, is that we have someone

“in the White House who who is stirring the pot, even after those assassination attempts, he could have”

used those moments to bring us together. I mean he could have used those generally dramatic moments, he could have used those moments to bring us together. He could have reminded us of who we are when we stand together and instead he just leaned into more arguments about all of this coming from the left and this is not a difference between, you know, right and left, it's a difference between right and wrong. And we have to be consistent about that. And this work shouldn't be so hazardous

that good people have to ask themselves when they think about their own families,

whether or not they should get in this work or not. That's all that at the end of the day is a huge loss for the American people. King's strategy of nonviolence sort of depended on a country that could be shamed, like an audience whose conscience could be reached and changed by the site of suffering. And, you know, I have heard this too, I have argued with folks on the left about this as well, which is like, you know, yes, nonviolence is great and that was great in the civil rights movement,

but there was also violence back then and there was obviously violence perpetrated on black Americans back then. And when the repression and the oppression is so great, sometimes people don't have a choice and it's justified. And I wonder if you think we still live in that country where the conscience of a country can be changed by the site of suffering and the strategy of nonviolence is still not just the morally right strategy, but the politically effective strategy.

“I think that the genius of King was that he appealed to our conscience and he also appealed”

to our charter documents. You know, he reminded of America what it said about itself, even in that very last term before he lost his own life tragically to political violence. He said, you know, referring to the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, be true to what you say on paper. And so I don't have an easy answer to that, can the country be shamed? The story of America is that we have these moments

when the democracy expands and we have these moments when it contracts. And we are clearly in a contraction moment right now and with that Supreme Court ruling and others is squeezing the democracy. But, you know, women who have given birth know that contractions are necessary for birth. And my hope is that by continuing to speak the truth, moral suasion, but also, you know, the other part of the civil rights movement is there ways in which you force people

to the table. Birmingham went on moral suasion. It was, it was, let's see if these shopkeepers think it's a good idea to continue to marginalize people in the days that lead up to Easter shopping. Right. So politics requires leverage. And it is an exercise and power. And we've got to use all of those tools and I would encourage us to use them in this tough moment when they're literally doing everything and to try to crush the voices of ordinary people.

We've got to stand up, you know, a little taller, straighten our backs, speak a little bit louder.

“And, you know, I think the moment comes when the democracy expands and we don't know when it's”

going to happen. But we have to keep doing the work. One of those tools is discipline and, and King certainly knew about that in the civil rights movement.

One thing I always think about the civil rights movement that people sort of forget is just how

incredibly well disciplined it was in strategic. And also, can I give you a little bit of hope because I live in Atlanta. So I, I get to hang around and young and John Lewis before he died and CTV and I mean, I walked around with giants. So here's here's the other thing I want us to think about in this moment because they'll tell you if you ask them. There's a way in which they didn't know what the heck they were doing. So I want to encourage us to know because these answers are not

easy, right? And I've got some ideas, you've got ideas, and things that we know we need to do.

life is hard and these problems are complex and so so there's a fall too, right? And they kept walking.

They didn't know that stuff would work and they didn't always know what to do and they were

arguments among themselves. You know, you know, you got, you got Joseo Williams and Stokely Carmichael, you know, on one and and a young all in the room and and and pieces and tithuses and synthesis and synthesis at the kind of healthy arguments that are needed to get to the right answer. I guess what mattered is that they were, they were all in the room together and had those arguments and weren't fighting online with each other. Right. We need a little bit more

grace for each other. Pastors like yourself are people who discern calls, not a metaphor. That's

obviously part of the vocation. So I'm not going to ask you whether you're running for president. I'm going to ask you something different, which is how would a pastor discern a call to run for president, not whether you will, but what does discernment actually look like for someone whose life

“is built around listening for that kind of question? I think that part of discerning what”

what any of us ought to be doing is getting in the fray. You know, I won't quote a pastor.

Roosevelt had this thing about the man in the arena and so another thing,

another thing I love about this work is I get to be in the arena. I could be somewhere home ringing my hands about what's going on. I get to be in the fight and all of us do. You don't have to run for office. We all get to be in the fight. So I think, you know, in the days ahead and the months ahead, part of what we have to do is get in, get in the fight and do the work.

“And I think through the process of doing, we get the clarity about what we ought to do next.”

What's sermon that you're working on right now? Well, Sunday's Mother's Day. Can I tell you, a pastor has one job on Mother's Day. Make sure all the Mama's feel good. Whatever else you do, if you fail at that, you have failed. It's going to make sure that the mothers and the grandparents and easy target there. Mama and Big Mama need to know and God mothers and people who don't have biological children, but have been like mothers to all of us

and mothers of sacred memory to lift them up. And I've said this, you know, Mother's Day, and I really do mean it, you know, for the folk who find, particularly who found religion and be a little bit mysterious, I think a mother's love, and that's not everybody's story. But whoever it was that mother do, a mother's love is about the closest thing we have to the grace of God.

“If you want to, if you want to glimpse of what God is like,”

see a mother in action, particularly when you've got a fight for a children. That is very true. That is very true. Senator Warnock, Reverend Warnock. Thank you so much for joining Pods Haven America, and come back against him. Good to be with you. Pods Haven America is a crooked media production. Our show is produced by Austin Fisher, Saul Rubin, McKenna Roberts, and Ferris Safari, with Rechirlen, Elijah Cone, and Adrian Hill.

Our team includes Matt de Groat, Ben Hefko, Jordan Canter, Charlotte Landis, Carole Pelaviv, David Tolz, Mia Kalman, Ryan Young, and Naomi Sengel. Our staff is probably unionized with the writer's guild of America East.