Senator Raphael Warnock Says the Supreme Court Has Done ‘Violence’ to Democracy

**SPEAKER_1** (0:00)
This message is brought to you by Apple Card. For a limited time, when you get a new Apple Card and purchase AirPods Pro 3 at Apple, you can earn back the cost up to 250 daily cash. New AirPods Pro and up to $250 daily cash back? Now that's music to my ears. Subject to credit approval, limitations in spend requirements apply. Apple Card is issued by Goldman Sachs Bank USA, Salt Lake City branch. Terms and more at apple.co. slash airpods.

**Wesley Morris** (0:26)
Interview listeners, hello. This is Wesley Morris. I host a show called Cannonball. And I'm just here to let you know that Cannonball is gonna be live at the Tribeca Festival this year. I'm gonna be on stage with Cynthia Nixon, which is very exciting. And we're gonna talk about, yes, that Cynthia Nixon. And we're gonna talk about some great art about New York City. And the show, we're gonna do it Friday, June 12th at 6 p.m. I'll say it again. Friday, June 12th at 6 p.m. And you can get your tickets right now, as I speak, at tribeckafilm.com/audio.
That's tribeckafilm.com/audio.
Can't wait to see you there. Please come join us.

**David Marchese** (1:14)
From The New York Times, this is The Interview. I'm David Marchese.
Give Senator Raphael Warnock credit for timing. In his new book, The Crooked Places Made Straight, Reflections on the Moral Meaning of America, the Democrat from Georgia identifies voting rights as one of the country's most pressing political and moral issues. Following the Supreme Court's recent blow to the Voting Rights Act, and the resulting rush to redraw districts in the name of partisan gerrymandering, that issue has turned, for many, into a full-blown crisis. Warnock's emphasis on the moral underpinnings of politics comes naturally. In addition to being a senator, he's also the senior pastor at Atlanta's famed Ebenezer Baptist Church, a position previously held by the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. So as a man whose influence literally encompasses both the church and the state, Warnock is well-positioned to talk about another timely issue, Christianity's place in the public sphere. We spoke about that, as well as what's behind the attack on voting rights, what certain Republicans get wrong about religion, and his own family story. Here's my conversation with Senator Raphael Warnock.
Senator Warnock, thank you for taking the time to be here with us today.

**Raphael Warnock** (2:40)
Great to be with you.

**David Marchese** (2:41)
It's an interesting time to be talking to you. You have called the Supreme Court's recent ruling on voting rights Jim Crow in new clothes. And we're in a moment where voting rights, it's a very fraught issue, more fraught in a way than it's been in decades, I would say.
And I wanna know a little bit more about sort of your personal relationship with voting rights, because your parents and grandparents grew up in the Jim Crow South. So can you tell us a bit about what voting rights means to you from a family perspective?

**Raphael Warnock** (3:14)
Yes, I talk a lot about voting rights because for me voting rights is not just one issue alongside all the other issues we fight and struggle and debate about in our democracy. It's the very house in which we live, it's the framework in which we get to fight for the things that matter. And so, I'm a child of the South.
My mother grew up in Waycross, Georgia, literally picking somebody else's cotton in the 1950s. And because of the arc of progress in this country over the last 60 years, I often say the hands that used to pick somebody else's cotton got to pick her son to be a United States Senator. And so, this story of fighting for voting rights doesn't feel distant to me. We've only been a democracy in a real sense since 1965
And what it seems to me we are witnessing in real time is an assault on those basic voting rights. And it's been stepped up over the last few years. But let me be really clear.

**David Marchese** (4:23)
Sure.

**Raphael Warnock** (4:23)
I don't separate this. Right now, black voters are at the center of the debate that we're hearing. I think that the Supreme Court has committed violence against our whole, the ways in which ordinary people can have a voice in our system.
The same Supreme Court that has gutted section two of the Voting Rights Act, gutted section five in 2013, it's also the same Supreme Court responsible for Citizens United. And so whether we're talking about black voters or white working-class voters, ordinary people, the voices of the people are being squeezed out of their democracy. And as someone whose parents live through that ugly history, I take deep offense, and I'm very concerned about our country.