Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
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 CrookedCon presale begins next week, starting Tuesday, May 12th. Friends of the Pod subscribers can purchase tickets to CrookedCon 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 Bigger, Better CrookedCon, head on over to crooked.com slash 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. I'm surprised by this question. 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, I gotta ask about that.
Well, you know, I return every Sunday morning to my pulpit.
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Chapter 2: What does Senator Raphael Warnock think about the Supreme Court's dismantling of the Voting Rights Act?
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. Churches, some temples, and some other places, rural communities. Anyway, but it's based on this line from Isaiah that,
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.
It's a grand vision, what I call a moral topography, a new way of thinking about who we are for one another or re-imagining 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,
Chapter 3: How does faith influence Senator Warnock's political perspective?
images, wonderful environmental images, if you will, as a way of talking about equity. 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 or 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.
Chapter 4: What lessons from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. can guide today's political movements?
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 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.
Chapter 5: What did Warnock say about the legacy of the Voting Rights Act?
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 there's always been corruption. But my goodness, the unabashed, unapologetic corruption that we're seeing coming out from this White House and the ways in which it has set the tone for others just not to tell the truth.
And I don't know where to start, but we're seeing that. We're seeing a president who is literally dismantling the country and literally selling it for parts and enriching his own family in the process. And I just think that we're in a moral moment where people are looking for leaders who are thinking about something other than themselves.
Chapter 6: How does Warnock respond to J.D. Vance's comments on theology?
I'm a Christian preacher. Jesus said that if you seek to save your life, you'll lose it.
Chapter 7: How does Warnock view the current state of political violence in America?
But if you lose your life, meaning if you give your life over to something bigger than you, you'll find something greater and loftier. 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 impoverished?
Well, I think that you see it at the center of our politics. 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 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 didn't think anybody would be listening.
Chapter 8: What does Warnock believe about the Democratic Party's response to Trump?
We can't afford that. We can't afford child care. In fact, he said Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security. He talked about all these things as if, you know, these are special interest groups and not the people who, by the way, it's their money. I mean, I love it when politicians talk about the people's money like it's theirs. 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. So we're now in another war in the Middle East at the cost of $1 to $2 billion a day, depends on whoever you ask.
And so far with the money we've spent bombing Iran, we could have paid for pre-K for four-year-olds all across the country. and not only educated these children. I'm a big fan of zero to four investments because that's where the real power is. You'll never be as smart. I hate to tell you, John, you're a pretty smart guy. You'll never be as smart as you were when you were four. That is true.
I have a five-year-old. That's where it is. And then allowing their parents to get to work. So that we increase the productivity and the prosperity of our country. So we suffer not from a poverty of resources, but a moral imagination. What Dr. King called a revolution of values is what we need. And that's what I work for in the Senate. It's what I preach about on Sunday morning.
It's what I talk about in this book, The Crooked Place is Made Straight.
Is the poverty of moral imagination, obviously it's clearly a problem with Trump, with the White House, with a lot of elements of the Republican Party right now. Is it a problem for the left, for the Democratic Party at all? Sure.
Absolutely. And, you know, I think we've been told for a long time about the things we can't do. And as someone who came of age during the Reagan Revolution and then the days after that, I'll tell you the first time it occurred, it really became real to me that the issue is really not resources. was when we went into, you know, those first endless wars in the Middle East.
You know, the war, you know, the unnecessary war against Iraq. And, you know, for the first time I realized, oh, it really ain't about the money. Because if it were, we wouldn't be bogged down doing this. And I can't, you know, 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 told, 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.
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