Latest / THE DAILY BRIEF / Warnock praises Pope Leo ‘He has challenged this war-mongering president'

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Warnock praises Pope Leo ‘He has challenged this war-mongering president' · THE DAILY BRIEF

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  Speaker 1: Senator Reverend Raphael Warnock is Democratic Georgia, currently in South Carolina,
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  Speaker 1: campaigning for Democrats. And he joins me now. Let me
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  Speaker 1: ask you that first, Senator, just about, you know, you're
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  Speaker 1: someone who came at politics from a rich experience at
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  Speaker 1: the pulpit and also in sort of political organizing, right?
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  Speaker 1: People come to that job with different skills and experiences.
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  Speaker 1: But I do wonder how much you think, like, fundamentally,
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  Speaker 1: this threshold question of merit, of the ability to do
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  Speaker 1: the job matters, whether running for office or, you know,
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  Speaker 1: serving in the military or in the U.S.
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  Speaker 2: Government.
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  Speaker 3: No, thank you very much, Chris. It's great to be
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  Speaker 3: here with you. Listen, representing the people of Georgia in
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  Speaker 3: the United States Senate is the high honor of my
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  Speaker 3: life that I get to fight for them every single day.
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  Speaker 3: It's a serious job and it requires a lot of work,
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  Speaker 3: a lot of study across a whole range of issues.
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  Speaker 3: And what we have seen with Donald Trump is and
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  Speaker 3: those around him is the ways in which they continue
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  Speaker 3: to diminish government and its role in our lives. This
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  Speaker 3: is the kind of context that autocrats like. And those
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  Speaker 3: who want an oligarchy, they like it like this because
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  Speaker 3: they don't really believe in government anyway. And while we're
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  Speaker 3: distracted and looking at our neighbors and blaming our neighbors
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  Speaker 3: and looking over there somewhere for a boogeyman, they're moving
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  Speaker 3: well from the bottom to the top. And I think
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  Speaker 3: what you're seeing in these appointments, and we've seen it
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  Speaker 3: all across the Cabinet, is a deep kind of cynicism
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  Speaker 3: about the role that government should play in the first place.
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  Speaker 3: Donald Trump thinks it's all about him and the people
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  Speaker 3: he appoints agree. They also think it's about him rather
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  Speaker 3: than the people that they were sent to elect, sent
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  Speaker 3: to represent.
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  Speaker 1: You're in South Carolina. It's not a state, I think,
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  Speaker 1: six months or eight months or 10 months ago anyone
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  Speaker 1: would have thought had been competitive. And I would say
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  Speaker 1: even after the fairly sudden death of Lindsey Graham, I
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  Speaker 1: don't think people would have guessed it's competitive. It has
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  Speaker 1: been a reliably Republican seat. Here's the 50 plus one
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  Speaker 1: polling average of that seat. Darlene Graham, Lindsey Graham's sister.
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  Speaker 1: is at 44.9 percent. And Annie Andrews, who's a doctor
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  Speaker 1: and the Democratic nominee, is at 43.4. That is that
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  Speaker 1: is a close race, at least according to polling averages.
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  Speaker 1: What's your sense of the state of that race and
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  Speaker 1: why are you down there?
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  Speaker 3: We have a real shot right here in South Carolina.
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  Speaker 3: Annie Andrews is the real deal. She's a pediatrician who
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  Speaker 3: has spent her life serving children and their families. And
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  Speaker 3: I think at the end of the day, people are
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  Speaker 3: looking at these rising costs, the price of gas, the
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  Speaker 3: price of groceries, their utilities, the fact that they can't
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  Speaker 3: afford health care. And they want somebody who's going to
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  Speaker 3: stand up and fight for them. And I think that
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  Speaker 3: that's breaking through in this moment. There comes a point
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  Speaker 3: at which partisanship is not the issue anymore. when you
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  Speaker 3: know you're trying to fill up your gas tank and
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  Speaker 3: you can't afford to fill it all the way up,
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  Speaker 3: as someone told me today here in South Carolina. And
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  Speaker 3: we've got a real shot not only in South Carolina,
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  Speaker 3: but all across the South, which is why I intend
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  Speaker 3: to barnstorm across the South in the coming days. I
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  Speaker 3: think that as goes the South, So goes the rest
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  Speaker 3: of the country. And I think that the path to
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  Speaker 3: a Democratic majority runs right through the South, which is
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  Speaker 3: why I'll be here. I'll be in Mississippi. I'll be
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  Speaker 3: in North Carolina because we've got some blue states. Here
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  Speaker 3: in the South, we've just got to get the folks mobilized.
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  Speaker 3: They may not be aware that they're blue states. We've
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  Speaker 3: got to get the folks registered. We can deliver Scott
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  Speaker 3: Colon to the United States Senate. We can deliver Annie
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  Speaker 3: Andrews to the United States Senate. We can get a
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  Speaker 3: Democratic majority, put some guardrails on this reckless president.
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  Speaker 1: Let me follow up on the Mississippi question. Mississippi has
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  Speaker 1: always been sort of intriguing for statewide because the demographics
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  Speaker 1: are such it's a very large African-American population, one of
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  Speaker 1: the largest in the country, I think probably the largest
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  Speaker 1: in the country. And there's, you know, if you look
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  Speaker 1: at the math of the sort of the starting point,
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  Speaker 1: it seems like a state with enough performance, you could
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  Speaker 1: get close, but it's very hard to get the last three,
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  Speaker 1: four or five points, particularly because voting in Mississippi and
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  Speaker 1: other places in the South tends to be very racially polarized.
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  Speaker 1: There just aren't that many white Democrats anymore across the South.
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  Speaker 1: What's different right now to your mind as someone who's
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  Speaker 1: had to obviously do that math in your own elections?
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  Speaker 1: You ran four times in two years. You won them
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  Speaker 1: all four times. What's different now that you think a
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  Speaker 1: state like Mississippi could be a possibility?
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  Speaker 3: I can tell you that people didn't think Georgia was
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  Speaker 3: in reach until we did it. They didn't think we
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  Speaker 3: could win until we did. And what we need on
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  Speaker 3: the ground in Mississippi is resources. We need time. We
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  Speaker 3: need money. And the Democratic Party ignores the South or
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  Speaker 3: diminishes its importance at its own peril. We can absolutely
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  Speaker 3: deliver this Senate seat. Part of what's going on right
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  Speaker 3: now is you have a president who is disconnected from
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  Speaker 3: from the concerns of ordinary people. People in Mississippi, all
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  Speaker 3: across the South, all across the country can see that
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  Speaker 3: his family is $ 4 billion richer than they were. He
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  Speaker 3: said he was going to fight for your families. Well, obviously,
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  Speaker 3: charity begins at home. So he's enriching his own family.
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  Speaker 3: Just forgot about yours. You have an incredibly gifted candidate
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  Speaker 3: in Scott Colom. He's a seventh generation Mississippian. He's a
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  Speaker 3: hard worker. He's knocking on doors. He's moving all across
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  Speaker 3: that state. And I think there are going to be
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  Speaker 3: a few surprises come election night.
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  Speaker 1: I wanted to ask you about something that happened today
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  Speaker 1: in the news, not necessarily related directly to the election,
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  Speaker 1: but a fellow man of the cloth. You are, of course,
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  Speaker 1: a senior pastor at Benezer Baptist Church. That's where you've
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  Speaker 1: preached for decades. The pope today underwent surgery to remove
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  Speaker 1: a lobe in his lower right lung that was found
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  Speaker 1: to be cancerous. I'm not going to ask you a
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  Speaker 1: medical question, but I am curious what you thought about
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  Speaker 1: the pope's ministry. and the role that he has played,
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  Speaker 1: not just obviously in the church, but more broadly in
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  Speaker 1: the sort of moral and spiritual life of the country
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  Speaker 1: and the world since he became the pope.
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  Speaker 3: In this moral moment in America, where we have a
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  Speaker 3: president who has unleashed a kind of wickedness into the ether,
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  Speaker 3: who is the most gifted politician I've ever seen at
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  Speaker 3: dividing us, We have an American pope. I think that
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  Speaker 3: is significant. I think Pope Leo's voice is so important
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  Speaker 3: in this moment. I love the ways in which he
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  Speaker 3: has tried to point us to the higher angels of
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  Speaker 3: our nature. He has challenged this warmongering president. And as
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  Speaker 3: a result of that, he got pushback from perhaps the
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  Speaker 3: most prominent and well-known Catholic these days in politics, the
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  Speaker 3: vice president. But the Pope's faith, he is a man
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  Speaker 3: of faith. And I'm praying for him in this moment
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  Speaker 3: for his strength, for his well-being. And I'm praying for
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  Speaker 3: the health of our country. All right.
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  Speaker 1: Senator Reverend Raphael Warnock of Georgia, who's in South Carolina.
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  Speaker 1: He'll be headed to Mississippi, among other places. Thanks for
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  Speaker 1: your time tonight.
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  Speaker 3: Thank you.
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  Speaker 2: Hey, it's Rachel. I am so glad to see you
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  Speaker 1: Thanks.