Will Raphael Warnock Hear the Call?

Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau. 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 a 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 as the senior pastor at Ebenezer Baptist Church, which is the same congregation that Dr. King once led. The senator spoke openly about J.D. Vance 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 CricketCon presale begins. It begins next week, starting Tuesday, May 12th. Friends of the Pod subscribers can purchase tickets to CricketCon and receive a special subscriber-only discount. General tickets go on sale the following week, Tuesday, May 19th. But if you want to guarantee your tickets for this year's BiggerBetter CricketCon, head on over to cricket.com/friends and become a Friend of the Pod subscriber. 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 wanted to ask you about Isaiah and why this prophet, 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 it was coming out, and I was like, I know it's not until mid-June, but this is fast. I've been very into thinking a lot, especially around the America's 250th, and everything with what the Pope is 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, ah, I gotta ask about that. Yeah, well, you know, I return every Sunday morning to my pulpit. I still lead Ebenezer Baptist Church, where Dr. King preached, and I have been preaching a sermon, literally, for the last few years in my own pulpit and pulpits all across the country. I've been preaching a sermon, literally, for the last few years in my own pulpit and pulpits 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. It's a grand vision, what I call a moral topography, a new way of thinking about who we are for one another or reimagining of ourselves. And so I've got this book coming out, thanks, John, on June 16th called "The Crooked Places Made Straight: Reflections on the Moral Meaning of America" as we go into the 250th anniversary. I use these sort of images. These beautiful environmental images, if you will, as a way of talking about equity, you know, rough, you know, the valley shall be exalted, mountains made low, putting us on a level playing field, crooked 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, a moral lens through which to 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 crooked places that you see? Oh, God, there are crooked places all over. The place. And, you know, we see it at the center of our politics. There's a kind of moral rot that's eating away at the fabric of our country. It's all the way from the White House on down. And you're seeing this infection and its impact in negative ways, the grift, the ways in which, you know, 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, you know, I don't I don't I don't know where to start, but we're seeing this. We're seeing that we're seeing a president who is literally dismantling the country and literally selling it for parts and enriching his his own family in the process. And I just. Think that that we're in a moral moment where people are looking for leaders who are thinking about something other than themselves. You know, 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, meaning if you give your life over to something bigger than you, you'll find something greater and lofty. I believe that. And it's what informs my work as a public servant. You talked about moral rot. You've also written that we suffer from. A poverty of moral imagination whose imagination is is impoverished. Well, I think 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 around, 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 the Affordable Care Act and 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. They can't afford that. In fact, he said Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, the whole thing. 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 it's theirs. He said we can't afford all of that. You know, we're just going to all we can afford, he said, was the military. And and so we heard him say that and we're watching him literally live out that basic, sick and flawed premise. And I think that's what he said. Because if it were, we wouldn't be bogged down doing this. And it's just amazing that some 20 years later, here we are again. And so, yeah, your question, is it on the left? I think all of us have been sold a bill of goods. And I just, I think that, yeah, you know, 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, the House, and the Supreme Court. Have you noticed they're not talking about the national debt? No. We get a Democratic president in 28. Then 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. They came out with a housing bill. Sounds like the beginning of a bad joke. And yet, that bill passed our committee unanimously. Every Republican, every Democrat voted for it. Passed the Senate overwhelmingly. We'll see what the folks do in the House. I'm proud of it. It caps my provision. It caps what? Private equity. It's been doing here in California, in Georgia, all across the country. Literally swooping in the communities, buying up so much housing stock and renting it, and sending the prices up for people who are trying to rent and people who are trying to buy. I've got other great provisions in the bill. As proud as I am of that bill, in a time when we're facing an affordability crisis, affordable housing, it will help. It will help a lot, but not enough. We're 5 million units short. Just on housing, it's a supply-side problem. And I think there 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 that incredible bill. I'm glad that I'm hoping it's going to get passed. But I hope when we're in power. We will invest more. That 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 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 lies of a demagogue who says, you know what your problem is? It's 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 preached at Ebenezer last Sunday on the Supreme Court's decision in Calais, which is 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? 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 happens. I don't know what I was planning to preach before that decision came down, but after it 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 nothing. It was led by Martin Luther King Jr. And the sad irony is that the people who are cheering that decision right now and who can't contain their glee, come January, they will stand up in Martin Luther King Jr. celebrations 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. Dr. 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 for our democracy. And one of the best ways to do that for folks who are asking is to mobilize voters. Like part of how we can at least mitigate this gerrymandering that we're going to see is to overwhelm them by showing up. Pod Save America is brought to you by Tommy John. What do I love about Tommy John? They're the best. They feel great. I'm wearing them right now. I love them. They're super comfortable. I basically only wear Tommy John. I just got a bunch of, I had the cool cotton, which is great, but I just basically switched over to the second skin, which I like even more. They're breathable and lightweight for all day comfort. There's a pouch for your comfort. Hmm. You know? And it says here, it flatters your natural shape. I just was feeling confident. I didn't even know that was happening. The stay put waistband ensures your Tommy John's won't roll, bunch, pinch, or leave marks. And their unique quick draw fly provides a horizontal opening for fast, easy access when nature calls. How is Tommy John different from other men's underwear? I don't even remember at this point. I only wear Tommy John. They are the best. They're more comfortable. It's better fabric. They last forever. It's actually, that's the only problem, which is I actually got more Tommy John just because I wanted some new colors, but I like didn't need to get rid of the old ones because they just last forever. But I just got more because I was like, you know what? I like want more of these second skin ones and I have plenty of the cotton ones. So I like them. Yeah. Yeah. I did that the other day too, because I was like, oh, do I have enough underwear? And I'm like, what? Do I have enough underwear? Just buy more underwear. Right. Right. What is this? Well, I also like, I want everything to be consistent. It's like all my socks to be the same. So I have all the same bombas and I want all my underwear to basically be the exact same thing. So I didn't want to have, I like want one kind of Tommy John. That's it. And so when you look at me, you know what I'm wearing is my underwear. Okay. Go to TommyJohn.com today and save 20 cents. Go to TommyJohn.com today and save 25% off your first order with code crooked. Comfort is perfected. Just use code crooked at checkout and upgrade your essentials today. Pods of America is brought to you by Z-Biotics pre-alcohol. I'm reading the script here. We love Z-Biotics. You know this, if you've ever listened to this, maybe this is your, if this is your first time listening, then let me tell you, you should be taking Z-Biotics if you drink, if you drink alcohol, because what happens is you take Z-Biotics, little thing, tastes like nothing. You just drink it down and then you drink and you feel great the next day. That's right. And I know you're probably thinking, is that, come on, is that serious? It's serious. It's serious. And every person that we've talked to about this, that we've, that we've suggested this, they do it and they're like, oh my God, you guys were right, as if we were going to lie to them. You were lying to your faces. Why don't you trust us? Z-Biotics pre-alcohol probiotic drink is the world's first genetically engineered probiotic. It was invented by PhD scientists to tackle rough mornings after drinking. Here's how it works. When you drink, alcohol gets converted into a toxic byproduct in the gut. It's a buildup of this byproduct, not dehydration, that's to blame for rough days after drinking. Pre-alcohol produces an enzyme to break this byproduct down. Just remember to make pre-alcohol your first drink of the night. Drink responsibly and you will feel your best tomorrow. From the crack of the bat at the stadium to the start of wedding season and the roar of the engines in Indy. All those engines. May is packed with back-to-back reasons to be out. Don't let a rough morning after keep you on the sidelines. Drink pre-alcohol to stay ahead of it and make the most of every Saturday this month. Go to zbiotics.com slash crooked to learn more and get 15% off your first order when you use crooked at checkout. Z-Biotics is backed with 100% money-back guarantee so if you're unsatisfied for any reason, they will refund your money no questions asked. Remember to head to zbiotics.com slash crooked and use the code crooked at checkout for 15% off. 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, to keep fighting this fight and watch these civil rights laws get unwound piece by piece 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 going to be wrestling with me. You know, that they, that they, that they have managed to be born at a time when we're witnessing some things that I didn't, you know, didn't have to experience. You know, I've lived most of my life under the protections of the voting rights law. They're stepping into a world without it. And so here we are in a time when things that we would associate with a much darker period are literally 20, it's a 21st century fight. The fight against Jim Crow is now a 21st century fight. But I refuse to be, I get tired. And that's true. It's both physical and it's, it weighs on your spirit and your emotions. But here's what we can't afford to do. We can't, we cannot afford to give up to those who are trying to weaponize despair. Because that's part of what this administration is up to. We can talk about all the policies. And as we learned 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 want to 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 Pettus 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 to say, look, we passed the Civil Rights Bill. And Dr. King said, great, I need a voting rights bill. Did not even skip a beat. Great. Go ahead, Pat, you said it on the phone. Guess what? I need a voting 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 dejected. Andy 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 doesn't have the power to get us voting rights. And Dr. King just sort of shrugged his shoulder 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 some. I love it. And they did. And they did. So they went to Selma to get the president some power. Dr. King understood that it's not about the people and power. It's 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 are post-secondary, 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. Some, I'm sure, you know, voting suppression, voter suppression has clearly played a role. But more are 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? Yeah. No, it's a great question. And, you know, we got to engage. And we have to resist the false dichotomy between standing up for women and not voting for Democrats. And standing and being a very clear voice against misogyny and sexism, which I talked about at length a couple of Sundays ago. ago in my pulpit. And at the same time, seeing the ways in which men and young men in particular, young black men in unique ways and Latino men are hurting. And somebody's got to speak to that. You know, it's a whole range of issues. I think so many of our young people feel demoralized. You know, I think about what I was able to do as a kid. I grew up in public housing. You know, 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 harder for me to do what I did now than it was for me as a kid growing up in the 80s. First college graduate in my family, one of 12 total kids, earned four degrees, coming out of projects, become the pastor of, you know, fairly famous and become a United States Senator. 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-throated in our condemnation of sexism, misogyny, sexual abuse. I talked about all this stuff a couple of weeks ago, as 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, you know, 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, because more often than not, our policies would actually be. Actually be more helpful, right? But 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, you know, 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, Georgia. That's another story I could tell you. But, you know, 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, but they didn't vote for that, right? But I'm worried about what that means. Think about it. Our government's getting ready to warehouse human beings. Literally put them in a warehouse. 10,000 people. By the way, across the street from the elementary school. And they want to do this all over the country. It's a moral atrocity. But here's what I also know from our recent history. When you build that kind of infrastructure, you're going to use it. And so as immigrant communities today, I'm worried that it will probably be black and brown in the future. And I'm worried that it's not going to be black and brown in the future. So I'm worried about what's going to happen. And I'm worried that it's going to be black and brown in the future. And I'm worried that it's going to be of the world. We're 4% of the world's population. We warehouse 25% of the world's prisoners. This has played itself out over decades in communities like in Baltimore and Philadelphia and in Atlanta and South Central LA. And we're under Republican and Democratic administrations, if we're honest. Men have been warehoused. And now I think we're seeing some of the children of those men who've been warehoused. 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. We're willing to do something about rehabilitation, prison reform, criminal 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. The United States of America, it houses more of its people, literally more people in prison and a greater percentage of its people than any other nation on the planet, including those whose human rights records we love to deplore. So think 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 moved 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, 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 doesn't determine your outcome. That's what I mean when I say we suffer not from a poverty of resources, but a poverty of resources. And I think that's what we're going to see. Moral imagination. We've got to, we need to reimagine who we can be. You said something a couple of minutes ago that 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 is, 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, everyday people know that the system is stacked against them. They know it in their bones. And they, they don't always have the words, you know, that we want to use. They know it. Do they feel like they can change it? They feel it. Yeah, I think, I think that's that, you know, some, you know, 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, there are people, and I do think it's overstated. Donald Trump didn't have this whole 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 bandwagon, so people would, would jump on it. But, but there were no, there were no overwhelming, it was, one is too many, but there weren't any overwhelming numbers of black men voting for Donald Trump. But I do think that, 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, and, you know, let's, you know, 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, I think, I think people do, do feel some of that. And I've seen it up close, you know, now that I'm in the Senate, when we, when we pass, the Inflation Reduction Act, largest clean energy bill and investment in human history. Also the thing we did in there was prescription drugs. We capped the cost of prescription drugs. My own bill capped the cost of insulin to no more than $35 of out-of-pocket costs for seniors. But 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 undo the other bad law that we passed. Yeah. Like what kind of what kind of capitalism is that for folks? You know, what kind of capitalism is that where the buyer gets the where the seller gets to tell you the price of something and you don't and you don't get to discuss it? Like what kind of capital? But that shows you how rigged the system is. And so we we we addressed it. We passed a bill. So so Medicare could negotiate. How many drugs? Ten. Ten 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 have an 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 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. Even the ones who didn't vote for me, I get to fight for those. Most of those people in the social circle, Georgia, where that detention centers, they're Trump voters. But I get to stand up to the administration that they elected 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 love 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 are nine and seven and they're constantly telling me what to do. I, you know, a lot of things. And I was an activist before I did. I got I got elected. I got I got arrested in the in the building where I where my office is. Before I had office, I got arrested there as an activist. Also a building, I believe, named after a Georgia senator. It was 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 it 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, we do need that. Pod Save America is brought to you by Sundaes. Is your dog's food created to maximize your dog's quality of life or to extend the food shelf life? Think about it. And while you do, let me tell you about Sundaes. Sundaes was founded by a veterinarian and mom, Dr. Tori Waxman, who got tired of seeing Sundaes. Sundaes is a so-called premium dog food full of fillers and synthetics. So she designed Sundaes, air dried, real food made in a human grade kitchen using the same ingredients and care you'd use to cook for yourself and your family. Every bite of Sundaes is clean and made from real meat, fruit and veggies with no kibble. That means no weird ingredients you can't pronounce and no fillers compared to kibble or other brands out there. Sundaes invest 50 times more in its ingredients to ensure premium quality. And the best part, you just scoop and serve no freezer, no thawing or prep, no mess. Just nutrient rich, clean foods that fuel their happiest, healthiest days. So you get more of them to share together. We love Sundaes. Your dog Leo loves Sundaes, right? Leo runs to the bowl, runs to the bowl. And we like filling the bowl with it because it's not like the wet dog food and it's easier to store and it's easier to give him. And he loves it. So, you know, what are you going to do? What else would you do? Nothing. Just get some of this dog food. Make the switch to Sundaes. Go right now to sundaesfordogs.com slash crooked50 and get 50% off your first order. Or you can use code crooked50 at checkout. That's 50% off your first order at sundaesfordogs.com slash crooked50. Sundaes4Dogs.com. Sundaes4Dogs.com slash crooked50. Or use code crooked50 at checkout. Crooked Con is coming up right after the election. And we have just added a bunch more great names to the lineup. We got Governor J.B. Pritzker coming. Senator Chris Murphy. And then over from the House side, Ilhan Omar, Robert Garcia, Sarah Jacobs, Jamie Raskin, Sarah McBride. We also have Carlos Eduardo Espina, Simone Sanders-Townsend, Eugene Daniels, David Pakman, Jessica Tarloff, Heather McGee, and then all the other people that we've announced on the website. Plus, more to come. Great list. Check out the full lineup. And get tickets right now at crookedcon.com. We'd love to see you there. That's crookedcon.com. You said something a few weeks ago to my pal Jen Psaki that stuck with me, which is that when J.D. 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 eyes, did I? That's not a good look. You know, I was doing worse than that. That's not a good look for the pastor when the senator rolled his eyes. Well, you made a comment. You said that's how fascists do it. And you also brought up Reich 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. I'd love to know what made you draw that connection. When you say someone like Vance is talking like fascists, when you mention Bonhoeffer and the Reich Christians as a comparison, like where does that argument come from in you? What is the tradition that you're drawing on there? Well, you know, I've been thinking about faith and politics for a long time. You know, I'm a trained systematic theologian. I, you know, I've studied that period. 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 Reich Christians. And so, you know. No two periods are the same. And I'm not, you know, conflating it in that sense. But there are lessons to be learned. I have to say that, in my view, J.D. Vance is one of the most craven politicians on the American landscape. Here is someone who literally said that Donald Trump is America's Hitler. And then he actually ran a campaign to become Israel. He ran a campaign focused on one to be his running mate. So if Trump is America's Hitler and then he campaigned to be his running mate, what does that make J.D. Vance? I think we saw a glimpse of that cravenness in recent weeks when J.D. Vance, who is a recently converted Catholic, had the unmitigated audacity to lecture the Pope on how to be the Pope. The Pope is. The Pope is doing what we need more religious leaders to do. And that is to bring a kind of moral question to who we are. And he was literally advocating for peace. Imagine that. And I just. Which is what all the Popes do. Yeah. So I just. I. Well, you know, I just couldn't help but be struck by J.D. Vance, the newly converted. Catholic, who wrote a whole book about his conversion, which is interesting, then turning around and saying that, you know, when the Pope is talking about theology, he ought to be careful talking about theology. He ought to stay in his lane. What are you talking about? It was fascinating to me, even from a theological perspective, and you hit on it, and obviously this was your thesis. But this. This sort of divide between personal piety and systemic injustice, and you could tell from what J.D. 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 very little on the larger moral questions, as you say in your book, the moral topography of the world. And I do find that. I find it 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 ceded the territory in terms of using more spiritual, religious language, regardless of what your faith actually is, 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 others, have to just kind of sit back and watch, because they don't. They're not familiar with that language. I worry about it deeply, and it's something that I'm thinking about a lot, because we have the historical lesson, right? And I don't want to keep going here, you know, because no two historical periods are alike, but it was J.D. Vance who said that Trump is America's Hitler, so he said that. The historical lessons are there. The church in Germany retreated into this very narrow, ghettoized 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 our name and do all kinds. So we already know the lessons of that. We don't have to go to Germany. That's the lessons of the American Christian slavocracy also, which was built on the premise that we're 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 it's 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 doesn't. It's dangerous for us to leave that to potentates, to leave that to politicians. And it's dangerous for those of us. It's dangerous for those of us who are concerned about these 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. You know, Donald Trump recently depicted himself as Jesus Christ. I guess putting his names on the building wasn't enough. He's now King of Kings and Lord of Lords. And I have, you know. I have to call it out because 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 snap cuts. Jesus spent much of his life healing the sick. Donald Trump is taking their health care away. And so we have to condemn his actions and we have to condemn his speech. I thought it was interesting. I thought it was interesting that there were faith leaders, even some in his camp, who came out and, you know, rightly criticized him depicting himself as Jesus Christ. Congratulations to them for that. But it's not enough just to condemn 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 complained. But those same people did not condemn the, we're going to eradicate a civilization and the threats of the war crimes, which is just as blasphemous. 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, because it's dangerous. It's a dangerous talk. It undermines the credibility of our nation in the, you know, on the globe. It undermines America's voice. It's moral credibility. It's doing a whole lot of damage. I mean, can't we stand together, no matter whether you're on the left or the right, and say we don't want an American president who talks like that? And acts like that as well. Yeah. One fellow Democrat who hasn't ceded that territory is James Tallarico, the 36-year-old Presbyterian seminarian from Texas who's running for Senate. He's named you publicly as a role model. Said he wants to follow your playbook to flip a red state. You said back in March that you hope we'll have yet another pastor in the United States Senate. Why does it matter to have another pastor in that chamber? What is it? What does having more pastors in the Senate, what does that bring to the country? Well, it's 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 ask myself all the time, what difference does it make that you're standing here as a pastor and as a pastor of Ebenezer Church? And that's an asset test that I bring to myself as I look at whether 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 unapologetically, you're going to, you're going to, you know, alienate certain voters and I don't know how else to, I don't know who else to be other than myself. And I'll, 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'd never run for office. 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 the reverend, remain the reverend. And, and every time when I would see 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. Easy instruction. Other than, other than myself. But I, you know, I, I, I, I talked about my faith, but I hope in a way that doesn't. 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 tent, widen the tent, uh, 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 independents. And I think Republicans gave me a hearing, um, because they heard a, a, a, a certain kind of voice. I do think we need, we need people of moral courage in this moment. Um, and so some of those people will be clergy. Um, uh, 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 I, it's an important question because 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. 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. Pod Save America is brought to you by Mint Mobile. I don't know about you, but I like it. I like keeping my money where I can see it. Unfortunately, traditional big wireless carriers also seem to like keeping your money too. If you're fed up with crazy high wireless bills, bogus fees, and free perks that actually cost more in the long run, switch to Mint Mobile. Stop overpaying for wireless just because that's how it's always been. Mint exists purely to fix that. Mint Mobile is here to rescue you with premium wireless plans starting at 15 bucks a month. All plans come with high speed data and unlimited talk and text delivered on the nation's largest 5G network. Bring your own phone and number. Activate with eSIM in minutes and start saving immediately. No long term contracts. No hassle. Ditch overpriced wireless and get three months of premium wireless service from Mint Mobile for 15 bucks a month. Uh, you could be saving a lot, uh, on your, uh, on your carrier if you just check out Mint Mobile. You probably don't even realize it, but you should check out what your bill is and, and then compare it to what you could be saving with Mint Mobile. If you like your money, Mint Mobile is for you. Shop plans at mintmobile.com/crooked. That's mintmobile.com/crooked. Upfront payment of $45 for three month, five gigabyte plan required, equivalent to $15 a month. New customer offer for first three months only, then full price plan options available. Taxes and fees extra, see Mint Mobile for details. Long play, our docu-series exploring the people and forces shaping the South is back. Newsflash, the South is the new political epicenter of the country. Democrats are way on their heels in this region, but Republicans are going through their own reckoning in the South, too. We're in the final stretch of the midterms, and the political map has only gotten more competitive with new states and districts emerging as potential flips. So we thought it was time to get back out on the road and take a closer look at what's going on in the South. I'm Erin Haines, journalist and expert on all things Southern politics. And I'm Jennifer Palmieri, former White House communications director. Tune in on Mondays to Long Play series on YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. Dr. King was the apostle of nonviolence in this country. And it was as theological as much as it was a political strategy. He believed nonviolence was. He 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's legislators, United Healthcare CEO Charlie Kirk, the multiple Trump assassination attempts, including one at the Correspondent Center a few weeks ago. What do you think King, the apostle of nonviolence in this country, would say to America right now? He used to say that, 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 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 have loud, robust, and sometimes rambunctious. 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 the nerve to ask whether or not Dr. King was a force of good in the world. I didn't agree with that. I didn't agree with that man about anything. But guess what? He had a right to think what he thought in America. And he had a right to change his mind or not. And I genuinely mourn the idea that these small children were now robbed of their father and a wife of her husband. But we have to be consistent. What is deeply disappointing, again, unfortunately not surprising. What is deeply surprising is that we have someone in the White House 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 terribly 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. You know, more arguments about all of this is coming from the left. And this is not a difference between, you know, right and left. It's the 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 is a. But at the end of the day, it's a huge loss for the American people. King's strategy of nonviolence sort of depended on a country that could be shamed. That, like, an audience whose conscience could be reached and changed by the sight 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. There was also 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 the country can be changed by the sight 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. He appealed to our conscience. And he also appealed to our charter documents. You know, he reminded of America of what it said about itself. Even in that very last sermon 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, they're squeezing the democracy. But, you know, women who've given birth. You 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 are ways in which you force people to the table. Birmingham wasn't all 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, right. So, so. So politics requires leverage and it is, it is an exercise in power. And we've got to use all of those tools. And I would encourage us to use them in this, in this tough moment when they're, when they're literally doing everything to try to crush the voices of ordinary people. We've got to stand up, you know, a little taller, straighten our backs, speak, 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, is discipline and, and King certainly knew about that and 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. Yeah. And strategic. And. Also, can I give you a little bit of hope? Yeah. Because, because I live in Atlanta, so I, I, I get to hang around Andy Young and John Lewis before he died. Yeah. On MTV and, I mean, I walked around with giants. So here, here's the, here's the other thing I want us to think about in this moment. It is because they'll tell you if you asked them, there's a way in which they didn't know what the heck they were doing. So I want to encourage us because these answers are not easy. Right. Yeah. And I've got some ideas. You've got ideas. There are things that we know we need to do. But there, you know, if, if, I mean, I think that's a mark also good leadership and being honest that there's life is hard and these problems are complicated. And so, so there's a fog too. Right. And they kept walking. They didn't know that stuff would work and they didn't always know what to do. And there were arguments among themselves, you know, you know, you, you got, you got Hosea Williams and Stokely Carmichael, you know, on the one and Andy Young all in the room and, and, and thesis antithesis and synthesis. And 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. It's 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. How would a pastor discern a call to run for president? Not whether you will, but, 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, wringing my hands about what's going on. I get, 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, um, part of what we have to do is, 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 sermon are you 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 mamas feel good. Whatever else you do, if you fail at that, you have failed. You got to make sure that the mothers and the grandmothers. It's a nice and easy target there. Mama and big mama need to know and godmothers and people who don't have biological children, but have been like mothers to all of us and mothers of sacred memory, um, to, to lift them up. And, and I, I, and I've said this, you know, you know, Mother's Day and I really do mean it, you know, for, for folk who find, particularly who find religion to be a little bit mysterious, like what the, I think a mother's love and I, and that's not everybody's story, but, but we, you know, but whoever it was that mothered you, a mother's love is about the closest thing we have to the grace of God. Yeah. If you want to, if you want a glimpse of what God is like. Um, see a mother in action, particularly when she's got a fight for her children. That is very true. That is very true. Um, Senator Warnock. Reverend Warnock, thank you so much for joining Pod Save America and come back again soon. Good to be with you. Pod Save America is a Crooked Media production. Our show is produced by Austin Fisher, Saul Rubin, McKenna Roberts, and Farah Safari, with Reed Cherlin, Elijah Cohn, and Adrian Hill. Our team includes Matt DeGroat, Ben Hethcote, Jordan Cantor, Charlotte Landis, Kirill Pelleviv, David Tolles, Mia Kelman, Ryan Young, and Naomi Sengel. Our staff is proudly unionized with the Writers Guild of America East. We'll see you next time. So we thought it was time to get back out on the road and take a closer look at what's actually happening on the ground. Tune in on Mondays to Long Play Series on YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts.