Latest / Pod Save America / Will Raphael Warnock Hear the Call?

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Will Raphael Warnock Hear the Call? · Pod Save America

• 0:20
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau. This Sunday,
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: Georgia Senator Raphael Warnock. Senator Warnock stopped by the studio
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: earlier this week. We talked about the Supreme Court's gutting
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: of the Voting Rights Act, his trip to an ICE
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: detention center in Georgia, the Democratic Party, all the topics
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: you'd expect in a conversation with a Democratic senator. But
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: we also had a surprisingly candid and really enjoyable conversation
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: about faith, religious faith, faith in our political system, and
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: faith in America. We also talked about the legacy of Dr.
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: Martin Luther King, as many of you know, Reverend Warnock
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: serves as the senior pastor at Ebenezer Baptist Church, which
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: is the same congregation that Dr. King once led. The
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: senator spoke openly about J.D. Vance lecturing Pope Leo on theology,
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: increasing political violence in America, the discipline required to build
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: and sustain a political movement as successful as the civil
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: rights movement. And we even talked about what it would
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: take for a reverend like him to discern a call
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: to run for president. And I will say, he did
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: not close the door to a run. We'll get to
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: that conversation in a moment, but before we do, the
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: CrookedCon presale begins next week, starting Tuesday, May 12th. Friends
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: of the Pod subscribers can purchase tickets to CrookedCon and
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: receive a special subscriber-only discount. General tickets go on sale
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: the following week, Tuesday, May 19th. But if you want
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: to guarantee your tickets for this year's Bigger, Better CrookedCon,
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: head on over to crooked.com slash friends and become a
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: Friend of the Pod subscriber. All right, here's Senator Raphael Warnock.
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: Senator Warnock, welcome back to the show.
• 1:53
  Speaker 2: Great to be back with you.
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: So you've written a book coming out next month that's
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: a sermon on Isaiah for America's 250th birthday. So before
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: I ask anything about the news, I wanted to ask
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: you about Isaiah and why this prophet, why this text,
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: and why now?
• 2:13
  Speaker 2: Well, thank you so much. I think I should tell
• 2:15
  Speaker 2: your viewers that honestly, I didn't tell you to ask
• 2:18
  Speaker 2: me about my new book.
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: You know, I saw that it was coming out and
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: I was like, I know it's not until mid-June.
• 2:23
  Speaker 2: I'm surprised by this question.
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: I've been very into thinking a lot, especially around the
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: America's 250th and everything with what the Pope is doing too.
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: And it's just, I've gotten into that mindset. So when
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: I saw that you were writing that book, I was like,
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: I gotta ask about that.
• 2:38
  Speaker 2: Well, you know, I return every Sunday morning to my pulpit.
• 2:41
  Speaker 2: I still lead Ebenezer Baptist Church. where Dr. King preached.
• 2:45
  Speaker 2: And I have been preaching a sermon literally for the
• 2:49
  Speaker 2: last few years in my own pulpit and pulpits all
• 2:53
  Speaker 2: across the country, churches, some temples, and some other places,
• 2:59
  Speaker 2: rural communities. Anyway, but it's based on this line from
• 3:03
  Speaker 2: Isaiah that Dr. King used to quote sometimes in his sermons,
• 3:08
  Speaker 2: every valley shall be exalted. every mountain and hill made low,
• 3:12
  Speaker 2: the crooked places shall be made straight, and the rough
• 3:15
  Speaker 2: places smooth, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed,
• 3:18
  Speaker 2: and all flesh shall see it together. It's a kind
• 3:20
  Speaker 2: of a vision of the land. It's a grand vision,
• 3:23
  Speaker 2: what I call a moral topography, a new way of
• 3:28
  Speaker 2: thinking about who we are for one another, a reimagining
• 3:32
  Speaker 2: of ourselves. And so I've got this book coming out. Thanks, John.
• 3:38
  Speaker 2: On June 16th called The Crooked Places Made Straight, Reflections
• 3:43
  Speaker 2: on the Moral Meaning of America. As we go into
• 3:45
  Speaker 2: the 250th anniversary, I use these sort of images, wonderful
• 3:52
  Speaker 2: environmental images, if you will, as a way of talking
• 3:56
  Speaker 2: about equity. The valley shall be exalted, mountains made low.
• 4:05
  Speaker 2: putting us on a level playing field, crooked places made straight,
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  Speaker 2: talk about integrity, rough places smooth, possibility, and the glory
• 4:15
  Speaker 2: of the Lord shall be revealed and everybody will get
• 4:17
  Speaker 2: to see it together, inclusivity. So equity, integrity, possibility, inclusivity.
• 4:23
  Speaker 2: And I use that as a kind of values proposition
• 4:26
  Speaker 2: or moral lens through which to engage some of the
• 4:29
  Speaker 2: big issues that have been at the center of our politics,
• 4:33
  Speaker 2: including poverty, climate change, mass incarceration, a whole range of issues.
• 4:41
  Speaker 2: And I invite Americans to join me in that conversation.
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: When you look around today in 2026, what are the
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: crooked places that you see?
• 4:50
  Speaker 2: Oh God, there are crooked places all over the place. And,
• 4:54
  Speaker 2: you know, we see it at the center of our politics.
• 4:56
  Speaker 2: There's a kind of moral rot that's eating away at
• 5:02
  Speaker 2: the fabric of our country. It's all the way from
• 5:06
  Speaker 2: the White House on down. And you're seeing this infection
• 5:12
  Speaker 2: and its impact in negative ways, the grift, the ways
• 5:16
  Speaker 2: in which, you know, there's always been corruption. But my goodness,
• 5:20
  Speaker 2: the unabashed, unapologetic corruption that we're seeing coming out from
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  Speaker 2: this White House and the ways in which it has
• 5:28
  Speaker 2: set the tone for others just not to tell the truth. And,
• 5:34
  Speaker 2: you know, I don't know where to start, but we're
• 5:38
  Speaker 2: seeing that. We're seeing a president who is literally dismantling
• 5:43
  Speaker 2: the country and literally selling it for parts and enriching
• 5:48
  Speaker 2: his own family in the process. And I just think
• 5:53
  Speaker 2: that we're in a moral moment where people are looking
• 5:56
  Speaker 2: for leaders who are thinking about something other than themselves.
• 6:00
  Speaker 2: You know, I'm a Christian preacher. Jesus said that if
• 6:03
  Speaker 2: you seek to save your life, you'll lose it. But
• 6:07
  Speaker 2: if you lose your life, meaning if you give your
• 6:08
  Speaker 2: life over to something bigger than you, you'll find something
• 6:12
  Speaker 2: greater and loftier. I believe that, and it's what informs
• 6:16
  Speaker 2: my work as a public servant.
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: You talked about moral rot. You've also written that we
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: suffer from a poverty of moral imagination. Whose imagination is impoverished?
• 6:29
  Speaker 2: Well, I think that you see it at the center
• 6:32
  Speaker 2: of our politics. Folks are always telling us the things
• 6:36
  Speaker 2: we can't afford. And then we look around, we can't
• 6:40
  Speaker 2: afford health care. A few months ago, we were debating
• 6:45
  Speaker 2: health care premiums in this country. And we were trying
• 6:49
  Speaker 2: to get them to expand the premium tax credits for
• 6:53
  Speaker 2: the Affordable Care Act. And they kept telling us, oh,
• 6:57
  Speaker 2: we can't afford to do that. And so as a
• 6:59
  Speaker 2: result of that, literally the health care costs for millions
• 7:03
  Speaker 2: of Americans, some 22 million Americans, doubled on average, for
• 7:09
  Speaker 2: some tripled, quadrupled. We can't afford healthcare, we can't afford childcare.
• 7:14
  Speaker 2: In fact, we heard Donald Trump literally say into the mic,
• 7:18
  Speaker 2: when he didn't think anybody would be listening, we can't
• 7:20
  Speaker 2: afford that, we can't afford childcare. In fact, he said Medicare, Medicaid,
• 7:24
  Speaker 2: Social Security. He talked about all these things as if
• 7:27
  Speaker 2: these are special interest groups and not the people who,
• 7:31
  Speaker 2: by the way, it's their money. I mean, I love
• 7:33
  Speaker 2: it when politicians talk about the people's money like it's theirs.
• 7:36
  Speaker 2: We can't afford all of that. All we can afford,
• 7:39
  Speaker 2: he said, was the military. And so we heard him
• 7:42
  Speaker 2: say that, and we're watching him literally live out that
• 7:47
  Speaker 2: basic sick and flawed premise. So we're now in another
• 7:52
  Speaker 2: war in the Middle East at the cost of $ 1
• 7:55
  Speaker 2: billion to $ 2 billion a day, depends on whoever you ask.
• 7:59
  Speaker 2: And so far, with the money we've spent, bombing Iran,
• 8:04
  Speaker 2: we could have paid for pre-K for four-year-olds all across
• 8:10
  Speaker 2: the country. And not only educated these children, I'm a
• 8:14
  Speaker 2: big fan of zero to four investments because that's where
• 8:19
  Speaker 2: the real power is. You know, you'll never be as smart.
• 8:22
  Speaker 2: I hate to tell you, John, you'll you're a pretty
• 8:24
  Speaker 2: smart guy. You'll never be as smart as you were
• 8:26
  Speaker 2: when you were four.
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: That is true.
• 8:27
  Speaker 2: I mean, that's where- I have a five-year-old, so- That's
• 8:30
  Speaker 2: where it is. And then allowing their parents to get
• 8:34
  Speaker 2: to work so that we increase the productivity and the
• 8:37
  Speaker 2: prosperity of our country. So we suffer not from a
• 8:40
  Speaker 2: poverty of resources, but a moral imagination, what Dr. King
• 8:46
  Speaker 2: called a revolution of values is what we need. And
• 8:51
  Speaker 2: That's what I work for in the Senate. It's what
• 8:54
  Speaker 2: I preach about on Sunday morning. It's what I talk
• 8:56
  Speaker 2: about in this book, The Crooked Place is Made Straight.
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: Is the poverty of moral imagination, obviously it's clearly a
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: problem with Trump, with the White House, with a lot
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: of elements of the Republican Party right now. Is it
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: a problem for the left, for the Democratic Party at all?
• 9:13
  Speaker 2: Sure. Absolutely. And, you know, I think we've been told
• 9:17
  Speaker 2: for a long time about the things we can't do. And,
• 9:23
  Speaker 2: you know, as someone who, you know, came of age
• 9:28
  Speaker 2: during the Reagan Revolution and then, you know, the days
• 9:33
  Speaker 2: after that, I'll tell you the first time it occurred,
• 9:37
  Speaker 2: it really became real to me that the issue is
• 9:40
  Speaker 2: really not resources. Was when we went into, you know,
• 9:45
  Speaker 2: those first endless wars in the Middle East, you know,
• 9:48
  Speaker 2: the war, you know, the unnecessary... war against Iraq. And
• 9:56
  Speaker 2: for the first time I realized, oh, it really ain't
• 9:59
  Speaker 2: about the money. Because if it were, we wouldn't be
• 10:03
  Speaker 2: bogged down doing this. And it's just amazing that some
• 10:09
  Speaker 2: 20 years later, here we are again. And so, yeah,
• 10:15
  Speaker 2: your question, is it on the left? I think all
• 10:17
  Speaker 2: of us have been told, been sold a bill of goods.
• 10:22
  Speaker 2: And I just, I think that, yeah, you know, I'm
• 10:26
  Speaker 2: concerned about the deficit, the national debt, like everybody else.
• 10:30
  Speaker 2: But literally, we've gone into endless wars, cut taxes for
• 10:34
  Speaker 2: people who don't need it. I mean, people who are
• 10:36
  Speaker 2: literally at the top. And meanwhile, Donald Trump has literally
• 10:39
  Speaker 2: raised taxes for everybody else. And it's just interesting to
• 10:44
  Speaker 2: me how Republicans don't even talk about the national debt
• 10:48
  Speaker 2: when they're in charge, when they're in control. They control
• 10:51
  Speaker 2: the White House, the Senate, the House, and the Supreme Court.
• 10:55
  Speaker 2: Have you noticed they're not talking about the national debt? No.
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: We get a Democratic president in 28.
• 10:59
  Speaker 2: They'll start talking about it again. And then I just
• 11:04
  Speaker 2: think on a whole range of things, housing, for example,
• 11:08
  Speaker 2: we just need to go bigger. I'm proud of the
• 11:11
  Speaker 2: fact that we passed the road to housing bill out
• 11:14
  Speaker 2: of my committee, the Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee.
• 11:17
  Speaker 2: By the way, little glimmer of hope in these dark times,
• 11:21
  Speaker 2: Tim Scott is the chair of the committee. Elizabeth Warren
• 11:25
  Speaker 2: is the ranking member. Can you imagine that? Tim Scott
• 11:29
  Speaker 2: and Elizabeth Warren went into a bar.
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: They came out with a housing bill.
• 11:36
  Speaker 2: Sounds like the beginning of a bad joke. And yet
• 11:39
  Speaker 2: that bill passed our committee unanimously. Every Republican, every Democrat
• 11:44
  Speaker 2: voted for it. Passed the Senate overwhelmingly. We'll see what
• 11:47
  Speaker 2: the folks do in the House. I'm proud of it.
• 11:49
  Speaker 2: It caps my provision, caps what private equity has been
• 11:52
  Speaker 2: doing here in California, in Georgia, all across the country,
• 11:56
  Speaker 2: literally swooping in the communities, buying up so much housing
• 11:59
  Speaker 2: stock and renting it. and sending the prices up for
• 12:03
  Speaker 2: people who are trying to rent and people who are
• 12:05
  Speaker 2: trying to buy. I've got other great provisions in the bill.
• 12:08
  Speaker 2: As proud as I am of that bill, in a
• 12:11
  Speaker 2: time when we're facing an affordability crisis, affordable housing, it
• 12:16
  Speaker 2: will help. It will help a lot, but not enough.
• 12:19
  Speaker 2: We're 5 million units short on housing. It's a supply-side problem.
• 12:26
  Speaker 2: And I think there comes moments, and there are particular
• 12:28
  Speaker 2: problems in the world where sometimes government, which is certainly
• 12:32
  Speaker 2: not the answer to everything, but sometimes government is singularly,
• 12:36
  Speaker 2: uniquely situated to help with certain problems, to get things going.
• 12:42
  Speaker 2: And so one of the things I'd like to see
• 12:44
  Speaker 2: is for us to go much bigger than what we
• 12:46
  Speaker 2: see even in that incredible bill. I'm glad that I'm
• 12:48
  Speaker 2: hoping it's going to get passed. But I hope when
• 12:50
  Speaker 2: we're in power, we will invest more, that maybe the
• 12:54
  Speaker 2: government ought to get into buying or building houses and
• 12:58
  Speaker 2: then selling it to the people. But we've got to
• 13:00
  Speaker 2: get this thing going. The average age right now, the
• 13:02
  Speaker 2: first time homeowner is 40. And so we, whether you're
• 13:08
  Speaker 2: talking about affordable housing or healthcare or just wages that
• 13:12
  Speaker 2: are stagnant, wages are stagnant, prices are going up. People
• 13:17
  Speaker 2: are experiencing a material deficit that I think that has
• 13:20
  Speaker 2: left them deeply, deeply frustrated and demoralized, quite frankly. And that,
• 13:27
  Speaker 2: in turn, has created the context for this kind of
• 13:31
  Speaker 2: spiritual sickness, as I see it in our country, of
• 13:36
  Speaker 2: spiritual malady that lets someone like Donald Trump emerge. It's
• 13:41
  Speaker 2: when people are desperate, when people's needs are not met,
• 13:44
  Speaker 2: that they are open to the lies of a demagogue
• 13:47
  Speaker 2: who says, you know what your problem is? It's your neighbor.
• 13:50
  Speaker 2: It's that other person over there. And the deep cynicism
• 13:54
  Speaker 2: that sets in like gangrene in the body politic, we
• 14:00
  Speaker 2: need moral medicine. We need leaders who will tell us
• 14:02
  Speaker 2: who we are when we stand together.
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: You preached at Ebenezer last Sunday on the Supreme Court's
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: decision in Calais, which is the voting rights case, from Dr.
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: King's pulpit. You know, you called it a Jim Crow method.
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: Talk a bit about that sermon. What did you say?
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: to your congregation on that day, and why did you
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: say it?
• 14:25
  Speaker 2: Well, you know, I come from a tradition where we
• 14:29
  Speaker 2: can't remain silent when that kind of thing happens. I
• 14:31
  Speaker 2: don't know what I was planning to preach before that
• 14:33
  Speaker 2: decision came down, but after it came down, I had
• 14:35
  Speaker 2: to address it. Let's be really clear that what we
• 14:39
  Speaker 2: witness in that Supreme Court decision is a devastating and
• 14:46
  Speaker 2: massive blow to all of the progress we made that
• 14:51
  Speaker 2: was led by Martin Luther King Jr. And the sad
• 14:54
  Speaker 2: irony is that the people who are cheering that decision
• 14:59
  Speaker 2: right now and who can't contain their glee, come January,
• 15:04
  Speaker 2: they will stand up in Martin Luther King Jr. celebrations
• 15:08
  Speaker 2: all across this country and extol the virtues of a
• 15:12
  Speaker 2: Martin Luther King Jr. that they've created in their mind.
• 15:16
  Speaker 2: You cannot remember Dr. King in January and spend the
• 15:21
  Speaker 2: rest of the year dismembering his legacy. The Voting Rights
• 15:25
  Speaker 2: Act of 1965 is the crown jewel achievement of the
• 15:30
  Speaker 2: civil rights movement, without which I literally would not be
• 15:34
  Speaker 2: sitting here with you right now as a United States
• 15:38
  Speaker 2: Senator from Georgia, and you would not have a Congressional
• 15:44
  Speaker 2: Black Caucus as large as it is. We wouldn't be
• 15:50
  Speaker 2: living as much as we are into what I see
• 15:54
  Speaker 2: as the creed of this nation, e pluribus unum, out
• 15:57
  Speaker 2: of many, one. They are trying to remake this country
• 16:03
  Speaker 2: into their dystopian, racist, Jim Crow image. There are too
• 16:07
  Speaker 2: many political hacks on the Supreme Court. And they're doing
• 16:13
  Speaker 2: the bidding of this president who's trying to stay in
• 16:15
  Speaker 2: power at all costs. He knows that Americans are not
• 16:18
  Speaker 2: buying what he's selling. He told them that he was
• 16:21
  Speaker 2: going to lower their costs, that he's raised them. He
• 16:23
  Speaker 2: told them that he was going to keep us out
• 16:26
  Speaker 2: of war. He took us into another war. And so
• 16:32
  Speaker 2: we have to be full-throated in fighting for voting rights
• 16:36
  Speaker 2: because while there are other issues, the democracy itself, the
• 16:43
  Speaker 2: ability to have a voice, That's the framework in which
• 16:46
  Speaker 2: we get to fight for all the other things that matter.
• 16:50
  Speaker 2: And so I was deeply, deeply disappointed but not surprised
• 16:55
  Speaker 2: by this decision. The Supreme Court has been working on
• 16:58
  Speaker 2: dismantling voting rights for years. It certainly, one other tragic
• 17:03
  Speaker 2: moment was Shelby versus Holder in 2013 when they hobbled
• 17:08
  Speaker 2: Section 5 and now Section 2. And I don't want
• 17:13
  Speaker 2: to go on and on about this, but Sorry for
• 17:15
  Speaker 2: the wrong answer, but they really should go back and
• 17:20
  Speaker 2: look at what happened after their first decision. In 2013,
• 17:24
  Speaker 2: you had Shelby versus Holder, and that was about Section 5,
• 17:29
  Speaker 2: and John Roberts, who has appeared to be the umpire,
• 17:35
  Speaker 2: who just sort of called him balls and strikes. I
• 17:38
  Speaker 2: think he has tarnished his legacy greatly, and the Supreme Court.
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: And this has been his project for a while.
• 17:46
  Speaker 2: We've learned that this is clearly his project. He said,
• 17:48
  Speaker 2: we don't need this anymore. And Ruth Bader Ginsburg, God
• 17:52
  Speaker 2: bless her memory, she said in her dissent that doing
• 17:57
  Speaker 2: what we're doing in Section 5 is like getting rid
• 18:00
  Speaker 2: of your umbrella in a rainstorm because you're not getting wet.
• 18:06
  Speaker 2: And her words proved to be prophetic. Everybody's inclined. Everybody
• 18:11
  Speaker 2: has a right to their own opinion, not their own facts.
• 18:12
  Speaker 2: Here are the facts. since they dismantled Section 5 in 2013,
• 18:18
  Speaker 2: the racial voter turnout, that gap has actually widened. And
• 18:24
  Speaker 2: I just think it's important to emphasize that because I
• 18:26
  Speaker 2: think it's easy, even for people on our side, to
• 18:28
  Speaker 2: look and see me sitting in this chair and not
• 18:31
  Speaker 2: know that the turnout, the voting turnout gap has widened
• 18:37
  Speaker 2: in the years since 2013. And It has widened twice
• 18:43
  Speaker 2: as fast in the states that used to be under preclearance,
• 18:48
  Speaker 2: that are no longer under preclearance. In other words, they're
• 18:51
  Speaker 2: not the only ones, but the same states, and I
• 18:54
  Speaker 2: love George, but the same states, I represent George, the
• 18:58
  Speaker 2: same states that were discriminating prior to the 1965, within
• 19:03
  Speaker 2: hours- Found new ways. They started doing things that- you know,
• 19:09
  Speaker 2: make the lines longer in black and brown communities, purging
• 19:13
  Speaker 2: people from the voter rolls, which Georgia's last two secretaries
• 19:19
  Speaker 2: of state have been very good at and all of
• 19:25
  Speaker 2: these things. And now, so that had an impact on
• 19:30
  Speaker 2: people showing up because it gets to access, right? And
• 19:33
  Speaker 2: then the decision last week says, in effect, that even
• 19:36
  Speaker 2: when you show up, after you overcome those barriers and
• 19:40
  Speaker 2: you show up, we're going to mute your voice. We're
• 19:43
  Speaker 2: going to minimize your voice so it won't have the
• 19:46
  Speaker 2: same impact by playing with the lines. In that sense,
• 19:49
  Speaker 2: it's a one-two. punch. And all Americans who love our country,
• 19:55
  Speaker 2: even with its flaws, but who believe in that basic creed,
• 19:58
  Speaker 2: one person, one vote, who believe in we the people,
• 20:02
  Speaker 2: the first three words of the Constitution, as I do,
• 20:05
  Speaker 2: we all ought to be deeply concerned and we ought
• 20:07
  Speaker 2: to be fighting for our democracy. And one of the
• 20:10
  Speaker 2: best ways to do that for folks who are asking
• 20:13
  Speaker 2: is to mobilize voters. Part of how we can at
• 20:16
  Speaker 2: least mitigate this gerrymandering that we're going to see is
• 20:20
  Speaker 2: to overwhelm them by showing up.
• 20:29
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• 20:49
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• 21:05
  Speaker 3: how has Tommy John different from other men's underwear? I
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  Speaker 2: They are the best.
• 21:10
  Speaker 3: They're more comfortable. It's better fabric. They last forever. It's actually,
• 21:13
  Speaker 3: that's the only problem, which is I actually got more
• 21:16
  Speaker 3: Tommy John just cause I wanted some new colors, but
• 21:18
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• 21:20
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• 21:26
  Speaker 2: So I like them.
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: I just, I did that the other day too. Cause
• 21:28
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• 21:31
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• 21:36
  Speaker 3: Well, I also like, I want everything to be consistent.
• 21:38
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• 21:40
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• 21:41
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• 21:42
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• 21:44
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• 21:44
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• 21:45
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  Speaker 1: checkout for 15% off. In response to the ruling, you
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: said that you're tired of racism. And I'm just wondering
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: for you personally, as a pastor, a black man, a
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: human being, What does that tiredness feel like to keep
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: fighting this fight and watch these civil rights laws get
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: unwound piece by piece and you've been fighting for so long?
• 24:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah, well, one title you left out is father. I'm
• 24:08
  Speaker 2: a father of a nine-year-old and a daughter and a seven-year-old.
• 24:13
  Speaker 2: And anybody who knows me knows that those are the
• 24:16
  Speaker 2: two brightest stars in my universe by far. And so
• 24:19
  Speaker 2: when I say I'm tired, part of what I'm saying is,
• 24:22
  Speaker 2: I can't believe that my children are going to be
• 24:25
  Speaker 2: wrestling with this. That they have managed to be born
• 24:33
  Speaker 2: at a time when we're witnessing some things that I
• 24:38
  Speaker 2: didn't have to experience. I've lived most of my life
• 24:43
  Speaker 2: under the protections of the voting rights law. They're stepping
• 24:46
  Speaker 2: into a world without it. And so here we are.
• 24:52
  Speaker 2: in a time when things that we would associate with
• 24:55
  Speaker 2: a much darker period are literally 20, it's a 21st
• 24:59
  Speaker 2: century fight. The fight against Jim Crow is now a
• 25:04
  Speaker 2: 21st century fight. But I refuse to be, I get
• 25:08
  Speaker 2: tired and that's true. It's both physical and it weighs
• 25:13
  Speaker 2: on your spirit and your emotions. But here's what we
• 25:16
  Speaker 2: can't afford to do. We can't, we cannot afford to
• 25:20
  Speaker 2: give in to those who are trying to weaponize despair.
• 25:23
  Speaker 2: Because that's part of what this administration is up to.
• 25:27
  Speaker 2: We can talk about all the policies. And as we
• 25:29
  Speaker 2: learned tragically last week, we'll win some, we'll lose some.
• 25:34
  Speaker 2: We'll win some elections, we'll lose some. We'll win some
• 25:36
  Speaker 2: policy fights, we'll lose some. But here's the fight we
• 25:40
  Speaker 2: cannot afford to lose, the fight for your spirit. We
• 25:44
  Speaker 2: cannot allow those who want to weaponize despair to win.
• 25:47
  Speaker 2: We can't allow them to convince us that they've already won.
• 25:51
  Speaker 2: And so that there's no need to fight. And here's
• 25:54
  Speaker 2: why I'm a blessed man. I was John Lewis's pastor. And,
• 26:03
  Speaker 2: you know, I got to know him. I used to
• 26:08
  Speaker 2: visit his wife when she was sick. I've spent time
• 26:12
  Speaker 2: at his home. I presided over his funeral. And I
• 26:17
  Speaker 2: think about him crossing that Edmund Pettus Bridge. And to
• 26:22
  Speaker 2: even zoom out even more about how he ended up
• 26:26
  Speaker 2: on that bridge, after they passed the civil rights law
• 26:31
  Speaker 2: of 1964, Dr. King went to see President Johnson. And Johnson, rightly,
• 26:37
  Speaker 2: as you might imagine, was happy to say, look, we
• 26:39
  Speaker 2: passed the civil rights bill. And Dr. King said, great,
• 26:43
  Speaker 2: I need a voting rights bill. Did not even skip
• 26:48
  Speaker 2: a beat. Great. Go ahead, Pat, step on the back.
• 26:50
  Speaker 2: Guess what? I need a voting rights bill. And LBJ
• 26:53
  Speaker 2: began to say, I get it, but we can't do
• 26:56
  Speaker 2: that right now. There's no way we can get that
• 26:59
  Speaker 2: passed right now. I don't have the power. He said,
• 27:03
  Speaker 2: you know, the political capital I had to spend to
• 27:05
  Speaker 2: get that done. Martin, I just don't have the power
• 27:09
  Speaker 2: to do it right now. And they left the meetings.
• 27:13
  Speaker 2: The staff was feeling all demoralized and dejected. Andy Young,
• 27:18
  Speaker 2: by the way, told me the story. He said, we're
• 27:20
  Speaker 2: all feeling demoralized. And somebody said to Dr. King, what
• 27:24
  Speaker 2: are we going to do? The president of the United
• 27:25
  Speaker 2: States just told us that he doesn't have the power
• 27:28
  Speaker 2: to get us voting rights. And Dr. King just sort
• 27:31
  Speaker 2: of shrugged his shoulder and he said, you know, if
• 27:35
  Speaker 2: the president doesn't have the power, I guess we're going
• 27:38
  Speaker 2: to have to go and get him some. Woo! I
• 27:41
  Speaker 2: love it. And they did. And they did. So they
• 27:44
  Speaker 2: went to Selma to get the president some power. Dr.
• 27:50
  Speaker 2: King understood that it's not about the people and power.
• 27:53
  Speaker 2: It's about the power and the people. And that's how
• 27:57
  Speaker 2: John Lewis and others ended up on that bridge and
• 28:01
  Speaker 2: crossing that bridge with brute force under the color of
• 28:04
  Speaker 2: law on the other side of that bridge, ready to
• 28:07
  Speaker 2: bludgeon them before they allowed them to vote. And John
• 28:11
  Speaker 2: Lewis and so many others kept marching. They kept walking.
• 28:16
  Speaker 2: They had no reason. I think it's easy for us
• 28:18
  Speaker 2: to forget that. Those of us who are post-civil rights
• 28:20
  Speaker 2: generation babies. And then just the easy story we Americans
• 28:23
  Speaker 2: tell ourselves, right? There was no reason for them to
• 28:27
  Speaker 2: believe that they could win. Those victories were not inevitable.
• 28:30
  Speaker 2: They were quite improbable. I'm so glad that John Lewis
• 28:33
  Speaker 2: and so many others kept walking. And so my advice
• 28:35
  Speaker 2: to us in this moment, keep walking.
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: Keep walking. We, um, We've been talking about the moral
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: and political arguments surrounding racism and voting rights and democracy.
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: One surprising trend in the Trump era is that, according
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: to election results, racial polarization has declined over the last decade,
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: largely because a small but not insignificant share of black men,
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: especially younger black men, have stopped voting for Democrats. Some
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: are staying home. Some, I'm sure, you know, voting suppression
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: voter suppression has clearly played a role, but, but more
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: also actually voting for Donald Trump. Uh, he doubled his
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: support among black voters between 2020 and 2024. And clearly
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: some of these young men are hearing something from Trump
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: and the right that they are not hearing from us.
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: And I wonder as a pastor, what do you think
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: they're hearing and what have, what have we failed to say?
• 29:34
  Speaker 2: Yeah, no, it's a great question. And, you know, we
• 29:38
  Speaker 2: got to engage. And we have to resist the false
• 29:44
  Speaker 2: dichotomy between standing up for women and standing and being
• 29:53
  Speaker 2: a very clear voice against misogyny and sexism, which I
• 29:57
  Speaker 2: talked about at length. a couple of Sundays ago in
• 30:02
  Speaker 2: my pulpit. And at the same time, seeing the ways
• 30:06
  Speaker 2: in which men and young men in particular, young black
• 30:09
  Speaker 2: men in unique ways and Latino men are hurting. And
• 30:15
  Speaker 2: somebody's got to speak to that. It's a whole range
• 30:19
  Speaker 2: of issues. I think so many of our young people Uh,
• 30:25
  Speaker 2: feel demoralized. You know, I think about what I was
• 30:28
  Speaker 2: able to do as a kid. I grew up in
• 30:29
  Speaker 2: public housing. You know, I'm one, I'm one, I'm one
• 30:32
  Speaker 2: of seven boys at my house and the first college graduate.
• 30:37
  Speaker 2: And I'm, I'm, I'm grateful that I had a path.
• 30:40
  Speaker 2: You know, it'd be harder for me to do what
• 30:42
  Speaker 2: I did now than I, than it was for me
• 30:45
  Speaker 2: as a kid growing up in eighties, first college graduate
• 30:47
  Speaker 2: in my family, one of 12 total kids. earn four degrees,
• 30:54
  Speaker 2: coming out of projects, become the pastor of a fairly
• 30:58
  Speaker 2: famous church, become a United States senator. It'd be hard
• 31:01
  Speaker 2: for me to do that now. And I think people
• 31:03
  Speaker 2: feel that, and young men feel that in a particular way,
• 31:07
  Speaker 2: and they feel demoralized. And I think we have to
• 31:11
  Speaker 2: find a way to be really clear and full-throated in
• 31:16
  Speaker 2: our condemnation of sexism, misogyny, sexual abuse. I talked about
• 31:21
  Speaker 2: all this stuff a couple of weeks ago, as I
• 31:23
  Speaker 2: do all the time. While at the same time, just
• 31:28
  Speaker 2: talking about the agency that all of us have and
• 31:32
  Speaker 2: create opportunities for men and for our boys. I think,
• 31:37
  Speaker 2: you know, I've got a seven-year-old boy and a nine-year-old girl.
• 31:40
  Speaker 2: I just want them to be okay. And I think
• 31:42
  Speaker 2: sometimes we get caught up in our jargon on the
• 31:47
  Speaker 2: left and people sometimes don't know what the heck you're
• 31:51
  Speaker 2: talking about. I think speaking plain English, because more often
• 31:56
  Speaker 2: than not, our policies would actually be more helpful, right?
• 32:00
  Speaker 2: But you got to speak plain English to folks. You know,
• 32:04
  Speaker 2: one of the things that I've been talking about for
• 32:05
  Speaker 2: years has nothing to do with, you know, any political ambition,
• 32:09
  Speaker 2: something that comes from deep experience. I've been talking about
• 32:12
  Speaker 2: mass incarceration. And there's not enough talk about that even
• 32:17
  Speaker 2: on our side, not nearly enough. And I raise it
• 32:21
  Speaker 2: inside the Democratic caucus from time to time. I'm worried,
• 32:25
  Speaker 2: for example, about these detention centers that are being built.
• 32:31
  Speaker 2: I'm worried about the implications for the immigrant community. And
• 32:36
  Speaker 2: by the way, I went to Social Circle, Georgia. That's
• 32:38
  Speaker 2: another story I could tell you. But, you know, it's
• 32:40
  Speaker 2: a red town where they're building a 10,000. They bought
• 32:43
  Speaker 2: a warehouse. They want to put a 10,000 bed detention
• 32:46
  Speaker 2: center in a 5,000 citizen town. And those folks even,
• 32:52
  Speaker 2: they voted for Trump, but they didn't vote for that, right?
• 32:54
  Speaker 2: But I'm worried about what that means. Think about it.
• 32:56
  Speaker 2: Our government's getting ready to warehouse human beings, literally put
• 33:01
  Speaker 2: them in a warehouse, 10,000 people, by the way, across
• 33:04
  Speaker 2: the street from the elementary school. And they want to
• 33:06
  Speaker 2: do this all over the country. It's a moral atrocity.
• 33:11
  Speaker 2: But here's what I also know from our recent history.
• 33:15
  Speaker 2: When you build that kind of infrastructure, you're going to
• 33:18
  Speaker 2: use it. And so as immigrant communities today, I'm worried
• 33:24
  Speaker 2: that it will probably be black and brown, you know,
• 33:29
  Speaker 2: folks tomorrow, you know, particularly young men. You know, we're
• 33:35
  Speaker 2: the mass incarceration capital of the world. Over the last 40,
• 33:39
  Speaker 2: 50 years and a year since Dr. King died, the
• 33:45
  Speaker 2: land of the free has become the mass incarceration capital
• 33:48
  Speaker 2: of the world. We're 4% of the world's population. We
• 33:51
  Speaker 2: warehouse 25% of the world's prisoners. This has played itself
• 33:55
  Speaker 2: out over decades in communities like, you know, in Baltimore
• 33:59
  Speaker 2: and Philadelphia and Atlanta and South Central LA. And we're
• 34:04
  Speaker 2: under Republican and Democratic administrations, if we're honest. Men have
• 34:09
  Speaker 2: been warehoused. And now I think we're seeing some of
• 34:13
  Speaker 2: the children of those men who've been warehoused. And the
• 34:18
  Speaker 2: impact of that is a kind of a social long
• 34:21
  Speaker 2: COVID that we're experiencing in our country. And I think
• 34:26
  Speaker 2: somebody's got to find a way. We have to talk
• 34:31
  Speaker 2: to that and give people spaces where they can talk.
• 34:34
  Speaker 2: I do it in my church, but I think we've
• 34:36
  Speaker 2: got to find a way to do it.
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it felt like we were for a while on
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: a path where even folks on the right were willing
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: to do something about you know, rehabilitation, prison reform, criminal reform.
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: And now we are in a situation where we're back
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: to showing that, you know, you got to be sure
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: that you're tough on crime as if like we can't
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: be tough on crime and also not be the capital,
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: mass incarceration capital.
• 35:06
  Speaker 2: Of the world. Yeah, I mean, for all of those prisons.
• 35:08
  Speaker 2: And again, we have more prisons than anybody in the world.
• 35:11
  Speaker 2: I mean, think about that. The United States of America
• 35:14
  Speaker 2: warehouses more of its people, literally more people in prison
• 35:19
  Speaker 2: and a greater percentage of its people than any other
• 35:22
  Speaker 2: nation on the planet, including those whose human rights records
• 35:26
  Speaker 2: we love to deplore. So think North Korea. Think Iran.
• 35:33
  Speaker 2: Think China. We got more people. And that's the policy
• 35:40
  Speaker 2: that we followed, again, through Republican and Democratic administrations for decades.
• 35:45
  Speaker 2: Our country could have decided in the wake of the
• 35:48
  Speaker 2: post-industrial change that we saw as we moved from an
• 35:52
  Speaker 2: industrial nation to the post-industrial era to a service economy,
• 35:56
  Speaker 2: we could have invested in training our young people, getting
• 36:01
  Speaker 2: them ready for that new economy that was emerging. And instead,
• 36:05
  Speaker 2: we invested in the infrastructure of death and incarceration, and
• 36:11
  Speaker 2: we're seeing the results of that. And what I would
• 36:16
  Speaker 2: like to see us do in this moment as we
• 36:18
  Speaker 2: look at these new emerging technologies, AI, which ain't going anywhere,
• 36:22
  Speaker 2: and a whole range of things, how do we get
• 36:25
  Speaker 2: our kids ready? How do we invest in children so
• 36:30
  Speaker 2: that no matter what zip code you're from, there's a
• 36:34
  Speaker 2: path to the American dream? Your parents' income doesn't determine
• 36:38
  Speaker 2: your outcome. That's what I mean when I say we
• 36:40
  Speaker 2: suffer not from a poverty of resources, but but of
• 36:44
  Speaker 2: moral imagination. We need to reimagine who we can be.
• 36:51
  Speaker 1: You said something a couple of minutes ago that stuck
• 36:54
  Speaker 1: with me about agency. And I think it's so important.
• 36:58
  Speaker 1: And you also talked about some of the jargon and
• 37:01
  Speaker 1: the Democratic Party's language. I wonder sometimes, do you ever
• 37:05
  Speaker 1: worry that the Democratic Party's argument that the system is
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: structurally rigged against people, which is has a lot of
• 37:14
  Speaker 1: truth to it, right? Do you worry that sometimes that
• 37:17
  Speaker 1: can tip into being disempowering because it somehow robs people
• 37:23
  Speaker 1: in that story of agency to fix the system?
• 37:28
  Speaker 2: Well, I don't know that they need us to tell
• 37:31
  Speaker 2: them that. They're living it. Every day people know that
• 37:37
  Speaker 2: the system is stacked against them. They know it in
• 37:40
  Speaker 2: their bones. And they don't always have the words you know,
• 37:43
  Speaker 2: that we want to use.
• 37:44
  Speaker 1: They know it. Do they feel like they can change it?
• 37:46
  Speaker 2: They feel it. Yeah. I think, I think that's that,
• 37:48
  Speaker 2: you know, some, you know, that's the thing. Do people
• 37:51
  Speaker 2: feel empowered to change it? And I do think that
• 37:54
  Speaker 2: there are a lot of people who feel powerless, which
• 37:57
  Speaker 2: is why they signed up for Donald Trump. You asked
• 37:59
  Speaker 2: me that question earlier. Let me ask it, answer it
• 38:02
  Speaker 2: more directly. I think that there are, there are people,
• 38:04
  Speaker 2: and I do think it's overstated. Donald Trump didn't have
• 38:06
  Speaker 2: this whole huge slew of black men voting for them.
• 38:09
  Speaker 2: I think Part of that was a game they played
• 38:11
  Speaker 2: during the election in 24. I think they were trying
• 38:14
  Speaker 2: to create a permission structure, a bandwagon. So people would,
• 38:19
  Speaker 2: would jump on it, but, but there were no, there
• 38:20
  Speaker 2: were no overwhelming. It was one is too many, but
• 38:23
  Speaker 2: there weren't any overwhelming numbers of black men voting for
• 38:25
  Speaker 2: Donald Trump. But I do think that, that people feel
• 38:29
  Speaker 2: the ways in which the powerful and the well-connected have
• 38:35
  Speaker 2: the cards. And in that situation, You do create the
• 38:40
  Speaker 2: context for someone like Donald Trump with his dystopian vision
• 38:45
  Speaker 2: of the country emerging. Here's what the Trump voters and
• 38:53
  Speaker 2: Bernie Sanders voters had in common. They're looking for somebody
• 38:56
  Speaker 2: to tear the thing up because they're just like, look,
• 39:00
  Speaker 2: it's not working. And they came to different conclusions. But
• 39:04
  Speaker 2: I think people do feel... some of that. And I've
• 39:09
  Speaker 2: seen it up close, you know, now that I'm in
• 39:12
  Speaker 2: the Senate. When we passed the Inflation Reduction Act, largest
• 39:19
  Speaker 2: clean energy bill and investment in human history. Also, the
• 39:23
  Speaker 2: thing we did there was prescription drugs. We capped the
• 39:28
  Speaker 2: cost of prescription drugs. My own bill capped the cost
• 39:32
  Speaker 2: of insulin to no more than $ 35 of out-of-pocket costs
• 39:36
  Speaker 2: for seniors. But in that bill, for the first time,
• 39:42
  Speaker 2: Medicare was empowered to force the pharmaceutical companies to have
• 39:50
  Speaker 2: to negotiate the price of prescription drugs. So just think
• 39:53
  Speaker 2: about that. We had to pass a law.
• 40:00
  Speaker 1: So that Medicare- To undo the other bad law that
• 40:02
  Speaker 1: we passed in.
• 40:04
  Speaker 2: 2003, I guess. What kind of capitalism is that for folks?
• 40:08
  Speaker 2: What kind of capitalism is that where the buyer gets,
• 40:11
  Speaker 2: where the seller gets to tell you the price of
• 40:13
  Speaker 2: something and you don't get to discuss it? What kind
• 40:17
  Speaker 2: of capitalism? But that shows you how rigged The system is.
• 40:22
  Speaker 2: And so we addressed it. We passed a bill so
• 40:26
  Speaker 2: Medicare could negotiate. How many drugs? 10. 10 whole drugs.
• 40:34
  Speaker 2: And then that wouldn't go into place for a few
• 40:36
  Speaker 2: years after we did it. It shows you that the
• 40:41
  Speaker 2: voices of the people are increasingly squeezed out of their democracy.
• 40:46
  Speaker 2: Big money, well-connected folks. have an outsized voice in our politics,
• 40:53
  Speaker 2: which is why even when there's agreement on things on
• 40:55
  Speaker 2: the left and the right, like universal background checks, for example,
• 40:59
  Speaker 2: in the gun safety debate, we can't get it done
• 41:03
  Speaker 2: because the politics too often is owned by somebody other
• 41:07
  Speaker 2: than the people. And the people feel it. And I
• 41:12
  Speaker 2: think they're looking for folks who will champion their concerns.
• 41:17
  Speaker 2: I'll tell you, I can, I can only speak for myself. I, I,
• 41:20
  Speaker 2: I love this job. I love being a United States senator.
• 41:24
  Speaker 2: I mean, first of all, it's a deep honor, literally
• 41:26
  Speaker 2: for 11 million people that I represent in the state
• 41:29
  Speaker 2: of Georgia, you know, that I get to represent them.
• 41:32
  Speaker 2: Even the ones who didn't vote for me, I get
• 41:34
  Speaker 2: to fight for those. Most of those people in Social
• 41:35
  Speaker 2: Circle Georgia, where that detention center is, they're Trump voters.
• 41:39
  Speaker 2: But I get to stand up to the administration that
• 41:42
  Speaker 2: they elected to fight for them. I love this job.
• 41:45
  Speaker 2: You know, it's who I am. I love to serve.
• 41:50
  Speaker 2: But while I'd like to get reelected so I can
• 41:54
  Speaker 2: continue to serve, I don't love this job enough to
• 41:57
  Speaker 2: sell my soul. I have an identity outside of being
• 42:04
  Speaker 2: a senator. I'm a pastor. I'm the father of two
• 42:08
  Speaker 2: amazing little children who are nine and seven, and they're
• 42:11
  Speaker 2: constantly telling me what to do. I'm a lot of things.
• 42:17
  Speaker 2: And I was an activist before I did this. I
• 42:19
  Speaker 2: got elected. I got arrested in the building where my
• 42:23
  Speaker 2: office is before I had an office. I got arrested
• 42:26
  Speaker 2: there as an activist.
• 42:27
  Speaker 1: Also a building, I believe, named after a Georgia senator.
• 42:32
  Speaker 1: It was like an arch segregationist now that you sit
• 42:35
  Speaker 1: in his seat.
• 42:35
  Speaker 2: Yeah. So I guess what I'm saying to you is
• 42:40
  Speaker 2: I love this job, but I don't need it that bad.
• 42:43
  Speaker 2: And I do think we need more We could use
• 42:47
  Speaker 2: more leaders who love doing the work, but they don't
• 42:50
  Speaker 2: need it.
• 42:50
  Speaker 1: Yeah, we do need that.
• 42:59
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• 44:25
  Speaker 1: You said something, uh, a few weeks ago to my
• 44:28
  Speaker 1: pal Jen Saki that stuck with me, which is that
• 44:31
  Speaker 1: when JD Vance told the Pope to, to be careful,
• 44:34
  Speaker 1: stay in his lane. I know it drove me insane. Um,
• 44:37
  Speaker 1: You said that.
• 44:38
  Speaker 2: I didn't just roll my eyes, did I? That's not
• 44:39
  Speaker 2: a good look.
• 44:39
  Speaker 1: You know, I was doing worse than that.
• 44:41
  Speaker 2: That's not a good look for the pastor when the
• 44:42
  Speaker 2: senator rolled his eyes.
• 44:43
  Speaker 1: Well, you made a comment. You said that's how fascists talk.
• 44:46
  Speaker 1: And you also brought up Reich Christians, who were the
• 44:50
  Speaker 1: German pastors who capitulated to Hitler by deciding the appropriate
• 44:53
  Speaker 1: place of the church was in personal piety, not in
• 44:56
  Speaker 1: systemic injustice. I'd love to know what made you draw
• 44:59
  Speaker 1: that connection. When you say someone like Vance is talking
• 45:03
  Speaker 1: like fascists, when you mention Bonhoeffer and the Reich Christians
• 45:06
  Speaker 1: as a comparison... Where does that argument come from in you?
• 45:11
  Speaker 1: What is the tradition that you're drawing on there?
• 45:13
  Speaker 2: Well, I've been thinking about faith and politics for a
• 45:15
  Speaker 2: long time. I'm a trained systematic theologian. I've studied that period.
• 45:26
  Speaker 2: I wrote a thesis on King and Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Bonhoeffer
• 45:31
  Speaker 2: was part of the very little Christian resistance that Hitler got.
• 45:35
  Speaker 2: Most of the church in Germany capitulated to Hitler. They
• 45:39
  Speaker 2: became Reich Christians. And so no two periods are the same,
• 45:47
  Speaker 2: and I'm not conflating it in that sense, but there
• 45:49
  Speaker 2: are lessons to be learned. I have to say that
• 45:54
  Speaker 2: in my view, J.D. Vance is one of the most
• 45:59
  Speaker 2: craven politicians on the American landscape. Here is someone who
• 46:06
  Speaker 2: literally said that Donald Trump is America's Hitler. And then
• 46:11
  Speaker 2: he actually ran a campaign to become his running mate.
• 46:17
  Speaker 2: He ran a campaign focused on one to be his
• 46:20
  Speaker 2: running mate. So if Trump is America's Hitler and then
• 46:24
  Speaker 2: he campaigned to be his running mate, what does that
• 46:26
  Speaker 2: make JD Vance? I think we saw a glimpse of
• 46:31
  Speaker 2: that cravenness in recent weeks. when JD Vance, who is
• 46:36
  Speaker 2: a recently converted Catholic, had the unmitigated audacity to lecture
• 46:40
  Speaker 2: the Pope on how to be the Pope. The Pope
• 46:45
  Speaker 2: is doing what we need more religious leaders to do,
• 46:49
  Speaker 2: and that is to bring a kind of moral question
• 46:54
  Speaker 2: to who we are. And he was literally advocating for
• 46:58
  Speaker 2: peace imagine that. And I just.
• 47:00
  Speaker 1: Which is what all the popes do.
• 47:02
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I just couldn't help but be struck by J.D. Vance,
• 47:14
  Speaker 2: the newly converted Catholic who wrote a whole book about
• 47:19
  Speaker 2: his conversion, which is interesting. then turning around and saying that,
• 47:28
  Speaker 2: you know, when the Pope is talking about theology, he
• 47:30
  Speaker 2: ought to be careful talking about theology. He ought to
• 47:35
  Speaker 2: stay in his lane. What are you talking about?
• 47:38
  Speaker 1: It's fascinating to me, even from a theological perspective, and
• 47:42
  Speaker 1: you hit on it, and obviously this was your thesis,
• 47:44
  Speaker 1: but this sort of divide between personal piety and systemic
• 47:48
  Speaker 1: injustice and You could tell from what J.D. Vance was saying,
• 47:51
  Speaker 1: and I think this is the case with a lot
• 47:53
  Speaker 1: of the more recently converted Catholics who are on the right,
• 47:56
  Speaker 1: evangelical Christians, the focus is very much on personal morality,
• 48:02
  Speaker 1: sexual morality, and very little on the larger moral questions,
• 48:10
  Speaker 1: as you say in your book, the moral topography of
• 48:12
  Speaker 1: the world. And I do find that to be a,
• 48:16
  Speaker 1: I find it to be clarifying, And also perhaps something that,
• 48:21
  Speaker 1: you know, that the left can kind of rally around.
• 48:24
  Speaker 1: And I wonder if you think sometimes you worry that
• 48:28
  Speaker 1: Democrats have sort of ceded the territory in terms of
• 48:33
  Speaker 1: using more spiritual, religious language, regardless of what your faith
• 48:37
  Speaker 1: actually is, in a time where you have people like
• 48:42
  Speaker 1: Vance and Trump, you know, attacking the Pope, and then
• 48:45
  Speaker 1: Democrats kind of have to just except for you, and
• 48:48
  Speaker 1: a couple others have to just kind of sit back
• 48:49
  Speaker 1: and watch because they're not familiar with that language.
• 48:52
  Speaker 2: I worry about it deeply. It is something that I'm
• 48:56
  Speaker 2: thinking about a lot because we have the historical lesson, right?
• 49:01
  Speaker 2: And I don't want to keep going here because no
• 49:04
  Speaker 2: two historical periods are alike, but it was J.D. Vance
• 49:07
  Speaker 2: who said that Trump is America's Hitler, so he said that.
• 49:12
  Speaker 2: The historical lessons are there. The church in Germany... retreated
• 49:19
  Speaker 2: into this very narrow ghettoized view, privatized view of the faith,
• 49:26
  Speaker 2: where faith is just limited to issues of maybe interpersonal
• 49:30
  Speaker 2: relations and personal piety, but we're going to let the
• 49:34
  Speaker 2: state carry on in our name and do all kinds.
• 49:39
  Speaker 2: So we already know the lessons of that. We don't
• 49:41
  Speaker 2: have to go to Germany. That's the lessons of the
• 49:43
  Speaker 2: American Christian slavocracy also, which was built on the premise
• 49:50
  Speaker 2: that we're enslaving human beings, but we're saving their souls.
• 49:53
  Speaker 2: So it's all right. Matter of fact, we're doing them
• 49:55
  Speaker 2: a favor. And so it's dangerous for people of faith,
• 50:01
  Speaker 2: for people of moral courage who claim no faith tradition
• 50:03
  Speaker 2: at all to see these larger questions about the society
• 50:10
  Speaker 2: and about how it's arranged and who gets crushed and
• 50:13
  Speaker 2: who doesn't, it's dangerous for us to leave that to potentates,
• 50:17
  Speaker 2: to leave that to politicians. And it's dangerous for those
• 50:26
  Speaker 2: of us who are concerned about these issues to let
• 50:30
  Speaker 2: the right dominate the space about faith and values particularly since,
• 50:37
  Speaker 2: in my view, they've got so much of it so
• 50:39
  Speaker 2: very wrong. Donald Trump recently depicted himself as Jesus Christ.
• 50:46
  Speaker 2: I guess putting his names on the building wasn't enough.
• 50:49
  Speaker 2: He's now King of Kings and Lord of Lords. And
• 50:52
  Speaker 2: I have to call it out because it's blasphemy, and
• 51:02
  Speaker 2: it's a deep, deep distortion of I'm a Matthew 25 Christian.
• 51:06
  Speaker 2: Jesus came to feed the hungry. Donald Trump is taking
• 51:10
  Speaker 2: food out of the mouths of hungry children through these
• 51:13
  Speaker 2: draconian snap cuts. Jesus spent much of his life healing
• 51:16
  Speaker 2: the sick. Donald Trump is taking their health care away.
• 51:20
  Speaker 2: And so we have to condemn his actions and we
• 51:24
  Speaker 2: have to condemn his speech. I thought it was interesting
• 51:27
  Speaker 2: that there were faith leaders, even some in his camp,
• 51:29
  Speaker 2: who came out and rightly criticized him depicting himself as
• 51:36
  Speaker 2: Jesus Christ. Congratulations to them for that. But it's not
• 51:41
  Speaker 2: enough just to condemn the picture and say nothing about
• 51:46
  Speaker 2: his policies. Because his policies are far more blasphemous than
• 51:52
  Speaker 2: the picture.
• 51:53
  Speaker 1: Or even in that same weekend, some of them condemned
• 51:57
  Speaker 1: the picture, but those same people did not condemn the
• 52:01
  Speaker 1: we're going to eradicate a civilization and the threats of
• 52:05
  Speaker 1: the war crimes, which is just as blasphemous.
• 52:09
  Speaker 2: He literally said a whole civilization will die tonight. And,
• 52:13
  Speaker 2: you know, we've all heard Donald Trump's bluster over the years, but,
• 52:20
  Speaker 2: you know, we can't dismiss that, you know, because it's
• 52:23
  Speaker 2: dangerous talk. it undermines the credibility of our nation in, in,
• 52:32
  Speaker 2: in the, on the, you know, on the globe, it
• 52:36
  Speaker 2: undermines America's voice is more credibility. Um, it's, it's doing
• 52:42
  Speaker 2: a whole lot of damage. I mean, can we stand
• 52:46
  Speaker 2: together no matter what are you on the left or
• 52:47
  Speaker 2: the right and say, we don't want an American president
• 52:51
  Speaker 2: who talks like.
• 52:52
  Speaker 1: That and acts like that as well. Um, One fellow
• 52:56
  Speaker 1: Democrat who hasn't ceded that territory is James Tallarico, the
• 53:02
  Speaker 1: 36-year-old Presbyterian seminarian from Texas who's running for Senate. He's
• 53:06
  Speaker 1: named you publicly as a role model, said he wants
• 53:10
  Speaker 1: to follow your playbook to flip a red state. You
• 53:13
  Speaker 1: said back in March that you hope we'll have yet
• 53:16
  Speaker 1: another pastor in the United States Senate. Why does it
• 53:20
  Speaker 1: matter to have another pastor in that chamber?
• 53:23
  Speaker 2: What is.
• 53:24
  Speaker 1: What does having more pastors in the Senate, what does
• 53:26
  Speaker 1: that bring to the country?
• 53:28
  Speaker 2: Well, it's something I think about all the time because
• 53:31
  Speaker 2: I think it ought to make a difference. I don't
• 53:33
  Speaker 2: think it automatically will. You know, like I ask myself
• 53:37
  Speaker 2: all the time, what difference does it make that you're
• 53:40
  Speaker 2: standing here as a pastor and as a pastor of
• 53:43
  Speaker 2: Ebenezer Church? And that's an asset test that I bring
• 53:46
  Speaker 2: to myself as I look at whether I'm going to
• 53:48
  Speaker 2: vote this way or that way, where I'm going to
• 53:49
  Speaker 2: fall on this policy or that. I can tell you
• 53:52
  Speaker 2: that when I was running for the Senate in Georgia,
• 53:55
  Speaker 2: there were those who cautioned me and said, I don't
• 53:57
  Speaker 2: know about you wearing your identity as a pastor so
• 54:02
  Speaker 2: clearly and unapologetically. You're going to, you know, alienate certain voters.
• 54:10
  Speaker 2: And I don't know how else to, I don't know
• 54:13
  Speaker 2: who else to be other than myself. And I'll, you know,
• 54:18
  Speaker 2: you know, I'll tell you that, that, The folks who,
• 54:21
  Speaker 2: you know, they put around me because I was running
• 54:23
  Speaker 2: for office. I'd never run for office before. My comms
• 54:26
  Speaker 2: team used to put this thing on my memos when
• 54:29
  Speaker 2: I'd get ready to do interviews and that kind of thing.
• 54:32
  Speaker 2: It said, remain the reverend. And every time when I
• 54:36
  Speaker 2: would see that, I would laugh. I'm like, well, what
• 54:37
  Speaker 2: else am I going to be? Like, I'm glad you
• 54:40
  Speaker 2: didn't tell me to be somebody else because I don't
• 54:42
  Speaker 2: know who else to be. Easy instruction. Other than myself. But,
• 54:46
  Speaker 2: you know, I... I talked about my faith, but I
• 54:51
  Speaker 2: hope in a way that doesn't feel oppressive to people
• 54:56
  Speaker 2: who don't share my particular faith tradition. You know, what
• 54:59
  Speaker 2: I'm always trying to do is open the tent, widen
• 55:05
  Speaker 2: the tent so that everybody is a part of it.
• 55:10
  Speaker 2: And what I discovered was that the people of Georgia
• 55:14
  Speaker 2: found that refreshing, both Democrats And I think Republicans gave
• 55:20
  Speaker 2: me a hearing because they heard a certain kind of voice.
• 55:25
  Speaker 2: I do think we need people of moral courage in
• 55:30
  Speaker 2: this moment. And so some of those people will be clergy.
• 55:36
  Speaker 2: Some will not be clergy. Some will be Christians. Some
• 55:39
  Speaker 2: will be Muslims. Some will be Jews, Hindus, Buddhists, Sikhs.
• 55:43
  Speaker 2: Some will claim no particular faith tradition at all. but
• 55:47
  Speaker 2: they will have a vision of our common humanity. And
• 55:53
  Speaker 2: it's an important question because let me be really clear.
• 55:56
  Speaker 2: Here's what I'm really clear about. I don't want to
• 55:58
  Speaker 2: live in anybody's theocracy. So I bring my values and
• 56:03
  Speaker 2: not my creeds to my work as a senator. And
• 56:06
  Speaker 2: I think those values are resonant in all the great
• 56:09
  Speaker 2: faith traditions and those who claim no faith tradition at all.
• 56:13
  Speaker 2: I'm talking about love. I'm talking about compassion, empathy, truth-telling, empathy.
• 56:20
  Speaker 2: In the words of Isaiah, who said, a little child
• 56:22
  Speaker 2: shall lead them, looking into the eyes of other people's
• 56:25
  Speaker 2: children and having enough moral capacity to see in the
• 56:30
  Speaker 2: eyes of other people's children, even your adversaries, a glimpse
• 56:33
  Speaker 2: of your own. That's the kind of politics I'm talking about.
• 56:45
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• 57:56
  Speaker 2: Dr.
• 57:56
  Speaker 1: King was the apostle of nonviolence in this country. And
• 58:01
  Speaker 1: it was as theological as much as it was a
• 58:03
  Speaker 1: political strategy. He believed nonviolence was the only force in
• 58:07
  Speaker 1: the universe that could break the cycle of violence. We
• 58:10
  Speaker 1: are living right now through a moment of rising political violence.
• 58:15
  Speaker 1: On the right and on the left, Paul Pelosi, the
• 58:18
  Speaker 1: Minnesota legislators, UnitedHealthcare CEO Charlie Kirk, the multiple Trump assassination attempts,
• 58:25
  Speaker 1: including one at the Correspondent Center a few weeks ago.
• 58:28
  Speaker 1: What do you think King, the apostle of nonviolence in
• 58:32
  Speaker 1: this country, would say to America right now?
• 58:36
  Speaker 2: He used to say that an ethic of an eye
• 58:39
  Speaker 2: for an eye leaves everybody blind. And, you know, I
• 58:45
  Speaker 2: think that's an important lesson in this moment, which is why,
• 58:51
  Speaker 2: you know, in the days after, a day or so
• 58:54
  Speaker 2: after Charlie Kirk was killed, I decided to go to
• 59:00
  Speaker 2: the floor of the United States Senate and condemn that killing.
• 59:06
  Speaker 2: I've condemned other forms of violence, certainly against politicians, Pelosi
• 59:10
  Speaker 2: and others, but I thought it was particularly important for
• 59:13
  Speaker 2: me to do that after Kirk's killing so that I
• 59:18
  Speaker 2: could say as a moral voice that political violence is
• 59:23
  Speaker 2: not acceptable. You cannot have a democracy and political violence.
• 59:30
  Speaker 2: Political violence is the opposite of democracy. We have loud, robust,
• 59:39
  Speaker 2: and sometimes rambunctious arguments in the American public square. And
• 59:46
  Speaker 2: we have those arguments, if we're thinking about it right,
• 59:50
  Speaker 2: not as a precursor to violence, but we have those
• 59:54
  Speaker 2: arguments instead of violence. And so I said that day
• 59:59
  Speaker 2: when I went to the floor of the Senate that
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 2: I disagreed with Charlie Kirk on almost everything. I mean,
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 2: he had the nerve to ask whether or not Dr.
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 2: King was a force of good in the world. I
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 2: didn't agree with that man about anything. But guess what?
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 2: He had a right to think what he thought in America.
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 2: And he had a right to change his mind or not.
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 2: And I genuinely mourn the idea that these small children
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 2: were now robbed of their father and a wife of
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 2: her husband. But we have to be consistent. What is
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 2: deeply disappointing, again, unfortunately not surprising, is that we have
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 2: someone in the White House who is stirring the pot.
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 2: Even after those assassination attempts, he could have used those
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 2: moments to bring us together. I mean, he could have
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 2: used those terribly dramatic moments. He could have used those
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 2: moments to bring us together. He could have reminded us
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 2: of who we are when we stand together. And instead,
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 2: he just leaned into more arguments about all of this
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 2: is coming from the left. And this is not a
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 2: difference between right and left. It's the difference between right
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 2: and wrong. And we have to be consistent. uh, about that. And, um,
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 2: this work shouldn't be so hazardous that good people have
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 2: to ask themselves when they think about their own families,
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 2: whether or not they should get in this work or not.
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 2: That that's a, that, that at the end of the
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 2: day is a huge loss for the American people.
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 1: King's strategy of nonviolence sort of depended on a country that,
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 1: that could be shamed that like an audience whose conscience
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 1: could be, reached and changed by the sight of suffering
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 1: and you know i have heard this too i have
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 1: argued with folks on the left about this as well
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 1: which is like um you know yes non-violence is great
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 1: and that was great in the civil rights movement but
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 1: there was also violence back then and there was obviously
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 1: violence perpetrated on black americans back then and when the
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 1: repression and the oppression is so great sometimes people don't
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 1: have a choice and it's justified and i wonder If
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 1: you think we still live in that country where the
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 1: conscience of the country can be changed by the sight
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 1: of suffering and the strategy of nonviolence is still not
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 1: just the morally right strategy, but the politically effective strategy.
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 2: I think that the genius of King was that he
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 2: appealed to our conscience. And he also appealed to our
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 2: charter documents. He reminded of America what it said about itself,
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 2: even in that very last sermon before he lost his
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 2: own life, tragically, to political violence. He said, referring to
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 2: the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, be true to
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 2: what you say on paper. And so I don't have
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 2: an easy answer to that. Can the country be shamed?
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 2: The story of America is that we have these moments
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 2: where when the democracy expands and we have these moments
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 2: when it contracts. And we are clearly in a contraction
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 2: moment right now. And with that Supreme Court ruling and others,
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 2: they're squeezing the democracy. But, you know, women who've given
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 2: birth know that contractions are necessary for birth. And my
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 2: hope is that by continuing to speak the truth, moral suasion.
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 2: But also, you know, the other part of the civil
• 1:03:53
  Speaker 2: rights movement is there are ways in which you force
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 2: people to the table. Birmingham wasn't all moral suasion. It was,
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 2: let's see if these shopkeepers think it's a good idea
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 2: to continue to marginalize people in the days that lead
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 2: up to Easter shopping. So politics requires leverage. And it
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 2: is an exercise in power. And we've got to use
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 2: all of those tools. And I would encourage us to
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 2: use them in this tough moment when they're literally doing
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 2: everything to try to crush the voices of ordinary people.
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 2: We've got to stand up a little taller, straighten our backs,
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 2: speak a little bit louder. And I think the moment
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 2: comes when the democracy expands. And we don't know when
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 2: it's going to happen, but we have to keep doing
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 2: the work.
• 1:04:47
  Speaker 1: One of those tools is discipline, and King certainly knew
• 1:04:51
  Speaker 1: about that in the Civil Rights Movement. One thing I
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 1: always think about in the Civil Rights Movement that people
• 1:04:56
  Speaker 1: sort of forget is just how incredibly well-disciplined it was
• 1:05:01
  Speaker 1: and strategic.
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 2: Also, can I give you a little bit of hope, too?
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 2: Because I live in Atlanta, so I get to hang
• 1:05:07
  Speaker 2: around Andy Young and John Lewis before he died and C.T. Vivian.
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 2: I mean, I walked around with giants. So here's the
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 2: other thing I want us to think about in this moment.
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 2: because they don't tell you if you asked them. There's
• 1:05:20
  Speaker 2: a way in which they didn't know what the heck
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 2: they were doing. So I want to encourage us because
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 2: these answers are not easy, right? And I've got some ideas.
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 2: You've got ideas. There are things that we know we
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 2: need to do. But, you know, I mean, I think
• 1:05:34
  Speaker 2: that's a mark also of good leadership. And being honest,
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 2: life is hard, and these problems are complex. And so
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 2: there's a fog too, right? And they kept walking. They
• 1:05:45
  Speaker 2: didn't know that stuff would work. And they didn't always
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 2: know what to do. And there were arguments among themselves.
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 2: You know, you got Hosea Williams and Stokely Carmichael, you know,
• 1:06:02
  Speaker 2: and Andy Young all in the room. And thesis, antithesis,
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 2: and synthesis, the kind of healthy arguments that are needed
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 2: to get to the right answer.
• 1:06:15
  Speaker 1: I guess what mattered is that they were they were
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 1: all in the room together and had those arguments and
• 1:06:19
  Speaker 1: weren't fighting online with each other.
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 2: Right. We need a little bit more grace for each other.
• 1:06:26
  Speaker 1: Pastors like yourself are people who discern calls. It's not
• 1:06:30
  Speaker 1: a metaphor. That's obviously part of the vocation. So I'm
• 1:06:34
  Speaker 1: not going to ask you whether you're running for president.
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 1: I'm going to ask you something different, which is how
• 1:06:40
  Speaker 1: would a pastor discern a call to run for president
• 1:06:43
  Speaker 1: and Not whether you will, but what does discernment actually
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 1: look like for someone whose life is built around listening
• 1:06:49
  Speaker 1: for that kind of question?
• 1:06:51
  Speaker 2: I think that part of discerning what any of us
• 1:06:56
  Speaker 2: ought to be doing is getting in the fray. You know,
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 2: I won't quote a pastor. Roosevelt had this thing about
• 1:07:07
  Speaker 2: the man in the arena. And so another thing I
• 1:07:11
  Speaker 2: love about this work is I get to be in
• 1:07:12
  Speaker 2: the arena. I could be somewhere home wringing my hands
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 2: about what's going on. I get to be in the fight,
• 1:07:18
  Speaker 2: and all of us do. You don't have to run
• 1:07:19
  Speaker 2: for office. We all get to be in the fight.
• 1:07:22
  Speaker 2: So I think in the days ahead and the months ahead,
• 1:07:28
  Speaker 2: part of what we have to do is get in
• 1:07:29
  Speaker 2: the fight and do the work. And I think through
• 1:07:33
  Speaker 2: the process of doing, we get the clarity about what
• 1:07:37
  Speaker 2: we ought to do next.
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 1: What sermon are you working on right now?
• 1:07:42
  Speaker 2: Well, Sunday is Mother's Day. Can I tell you, a
• 1:07:47
  Speaker 2: pastor has one job on Mother's Day, make sure all
• 1:07:49
  Speaker 2: the mamas feel good. Whatever else you do, if you
• 1:07:53
  Speaker 2: fail at that, you have failed. You got to make
• 1:07:55
  Speaker 2: sure that the mothers and the grandmothers.
• 1:07:56
  Speaker 1: It's a nice and easy target there.
• 1:07:58
  Speaker 2: Mama and big mama need to know, and godmothers and
• 1:08:01
  Speaker 2: people who don't have biological children, but have been like
• 1:08:04
  Speaker 2: mothers to all of us and mothers of sacred memory,
• 1:08:08
  Speaker 2: to lift them up. And I've said this, you know,
• 1:08:13
  Speaker 2: Mother's Day, and I really do mean it, you know,
• 1:08:16
  Speaker 2: for folk who find, particularly who find religion to be
• 1:08:19
  Speaker 2: a little bit mysterious. I think a mother's love, and
• 1:08:24
  Speaker 2: that's not everybody's story, but whoever it was that mothered you,
• 1:08:30
  Speaker 2: a mother's love is about the closest thing we have
• 1:08:34
  Speaker 2: to the grace of God. If you want a glimpse
• 1:08:38
  Speaker 2: of what God is like, see a mother in action,
• 1:08:42
  Speaker 2: particularly when she's got to fight for her children.
• 1:08:45
  Speaker 1: That is very true. That is very true. Senator Warnock,
• 1:08:48
  Speaker 1: Reverend Warnock, thank you so much for joining Pod Save
• 1:08:50
  Speaker 1: America and come back again soon.
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 2: Good to be with you.
• 1:08:59
  Speaker 1: Pod Save America is a Crooked Media production. Our show
• 1:09:02
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• 1:09:04
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• 1:09:07
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• 1:09:15
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