INTERVIEW: Senator Raphael Warnock Talks Democratic & Presidential Leadership, Keisha Lance Bottoms +More

Raphael Warnock (0:03)

The Breakfast Club.

Charlamagne Tha God (0:05)

We gon finish or y'all done?

Yep, it's the world's most dangerous morning show The Breakfast Club. DJ Envy, Jess Hilarious, Charlamagne Tha God. Envy and Jess are not here, but Lauren LaRosa is, and we have a very special guest in the building. Senator Ralph Warnock is here. How you doing, brother?

Raphael Warnock (0:18)

Great to be here with you.

Charlamagne Tha God (0:19)

Hey, man. We just had a...

Raphael Warnock (0:21)

It is Raphael I have to... Raphael, I'm sorry.

Charlamagne Tha God (0:23)

Senator Raphael Warnock, I'm sorry.

Raphael Warnock (0:24)

Yeah, it's all right.

Charlamagne Tha God (0:25)

I'm just gonna call you Senator. Senator Warnock.

Raphael Warnock (0:28)

Call me when it's time to eat, man.

Charlamagne Tha God (0:30)

But you know, we just had a historic night across America, man, just this past week. When you look at the results, what do you believe the American people were voting for? Were they voting for Democrats? Were they voting against Trump? Or were they just voting for a fundamentally different kind of politics?

Raphael Warnock (0:44)

I have to tell you, and it's great to be here, that as I've been walking around, moving around Georgia and across the country, people have just felt like they're living under a cloud. Like, this is not some normal time. There's a heaviness, even in happy moments. It's always there. You feel it.

And I literally will be out in public, and these last two years, I've been in the Senate now, six years, and folks will literally grab me, sometimes physically, and say, fight for us.

Stand up for us. And I think that's what the American people are saying, that in this moment in which they are being crushed by these costs driven by these tariffs, which is just a tax on everything, which disproportionately hurts people who are working class, poor everyday people, gas prices spiked by this lawless war of choice, all of this corruption, health care that they can't afford. People are just feeling crushed. I mean, how else do you explain the ways in which we had really a blue tsunami, even in districts that they gerrymandered? I think folks are waking up in those red districts, and they're saying, well, Donald Trump certainly isn't fighting for us. And he showed that the day after the election, showing off his ballroom.

Charlamagne Tha God (2:01)

Yeah. I mean, it definitely was a complete rebuke of the last 10 years of MAGA, but I don't want Democrats to get comfortable and think that they actually went out there and voted because they trust the Democratic Party.

Raphael Warnock (2:13)

Oh, I agree with that. I agree with that.

I think both political parties don't have a good brand right now, you know? And I think there's a way in which people have been trying for a long time almost to get above politics, the recognition that what we're dealing with in a sense is deeper than the puny vocabulary of politics, that it gets to the character of the nation, what kind of nation we intend to be, do people have a path for their children to prosper? And they're frustrated because they've seen over the last 50 years, right? The wages go down, the working class people. We have wealth inequality right now that's worse than it was during the Gilded Age. The age that gave birth to reform, the eight-hour work week, unions, all of that. Wealth inequality is worse now than it was then. So people, I think, have a sense that the system is rigged.

And Donald Trump is a crass and obvious expression of that. But this corruption, this choke hold that corporate interests have had on our politics, limiting what we can even do or imagine is real. And I think if we think that people want to simply to return to normalcy prior to Trump, then you've misdiagnosed where we are. This is a time to reimagine what's possible in the United States of America.

Charlamagne Tha God (3:41)

How do you distinguish a mandate for change from a temporary rejection of the party, Empow?

Raphael Warnock (3:48)

Well, clearly, it's a rejection.

Lauren LaRosa (3:49)

Yeah.

Raphael Warnock (3:49)

And-

Lauren LaRosa (3:50)

But it could be temporary.

Raphael Warnock (3:51)

And people, well, people feel, people in the, even in the MAGA coalition feel betrayed. But I do think both parties are very much on trial right now, and people want to know who will deliver for everyday people, which is the work that I try to do every single day.

Charlamagne Tha God (4:06)

But we still have to be realistic, too, though, because there's a lot of things like, you know, we know the big, beautiful bill kicks in in January, and people might say, well, once they, once they medicate, the health care and stuff starts getting taken away, they might start blaming that on Democrats. They shouldn't.