Raphael Warnock on Faith vs. Politics, Renee Good, & Real Activism

00:00:00
Speaker 1: Hello, Hello everybody, Thank you guys for coming YouTube in session, first session of the year. Very excited to be here. I'm Matt Barnes from All the Smoke, and we're not necessarily known as a political outlet, but we are someone who aren't afraid to speak our minds and like to call people sometimes on a little bit of the bs they have. With everything going on in our country today, I felt it's more important than ever to utilize my platform and my audience to bring awareness and information to people who desperately needed. I'm very excited to sit down with Senator today, a first black Senator from the state of Georgia, first black Southern Senator, and one hundred and fifty years to be elected by African American voters. Without further ado, I like to welcome to the stage Senator Reverend Rafael Warnot. All right, can see, Senator.

00:00:53
Speaker 2: How are you? How's life? I'm doing well. How's everybody out there? That's a relevant question these days? Right what's the energy around the Capitol? Like?

00:01:06
Speaker 1: Right now?

00:01:07
Speaker 2: There is a sense that these are deeply consequential times, that what we do it matters all the time. But all I know is that I wake up every morning knowing that the work that I'm trying to do is so important that families that are struggling right now with issues around affordability, trying to make their lives work, they're kind of on us to show up. And I'm deeply honest that I get to do that every single day, certainly on behalf of the people of Georgia, but on behalf of our country. Absolutely.

00:01:38
Speaker 1: I think it's safe to say that we are hurting nation right now. Our social media new feeds daily are filled with the estopian sites, our own government killing American citizen, going door to door to try to deport people, and shattering communities left and right. In moments like these, when a lot of people are feeling discouraged, overwhelmed, and personally defeated, what is your message to keep hope alive and what is some encouraging words you would have for the country.

00:02:06
Speaker 2: So I'm not gonna sugarcoat it. I don't have to tell people that these are dark times, that these are difficult days. I am a person of faith, I'm a pastor, but faith for me is not lying optimism, it's not denying that things are hard. It's really with a tough mind and a tender heart looking at the reality of the things that we are faced with, and just a determination to show up every single day fight the good fight. And anybody who's been a student of the movement as I have been as leader of ebenez Or Baptist Church, a church with a storied history of resistance even before doctor King. I talk about that sometime, but all of the I'm only the fifth senior pastor of that church founded in eighteen eighty six. All of our pastors have been activists in their own right, and what I know is a student of that movement of putting your faith in the action to make life better for other people. Embody to the civil rights movement is that these fights come with starts and fits. Some days you move a couple of steps forward, then you move one or two steps back. Their moments in the story of our country where the democracy expands, their moments when it contracts. And we're going through one very painful period of contraction. But contraction is necessary for new birth. And what I hope is that we will not waste this moment of crisis, that will lean into what it means to be an American people, that will show up for our neighbors. And having had this awful moment of staring into the abyss, the abyss if you will, seeing how bad it can be. I'm afraid things are going to get worse before they get better, unfortunately. But you take the long view and you and you keep showing up with the hope that will be better. Not go back to where we I want to get back. No, there's no going back. We need to be better than we were, absolutely moving forward.

00:04:13
Speaker 1: I grew up in the eighties, and I know in the seventies and eighties it was the saying it takes a village. What message would you have to communities to help them protect them and their neighbors against the government At a time like this.

00:04:25
Speaker 2: We should really sit with this moment because I don't I don't want us to be in denial about what we're faced with, and over the last few days especially I you know, I preached about it this past Sunday and my pulpe it it's painful to watch those videos, you know, as you see the videos of what went down in Minneapolis, but it's happening all over our country. Clearly, the Trump regime regime is trying to convince us that we are at war with one another. They're putting military boo on the streets to convince us that our neighbors are the problem, that our neighbors are in it. And what gives me hope is that organically I am seeing ordinary show up because they know the people who are being attacked, those are their neighbors. And they're literally in many instances putting themselves in harms way, whether it's you know, insisting that we're going to video tape this. We're going to and that's the gift of this moment YouTube of the world, right. I mean, that's part of the revolution, that's part of that's part of the hope. And they're showing up. And that's what Renee Good did. And we have to say her name because she lived up to her name, and now they're trying to malign her name. But I talked about this in my pulpit Sunday as a close discernment because what occurs to me about her. We've seen this kind of ugliness for with you know, the overuse of force, but she volunteered to be in that space for her neighbors. She could have stayed home, she could have stayed out of harm's way, but there was something about witnessing this that summoned something in her conscience. And this is not right and we need we need more of that. We can't normalize this dystopian reality. We have to push back every single day, and that's how we win.

00:06:35
Speaker 1: As a father, and I'm sure I speak for every parent in here, we don't want this version of America for our children. And once we do get past this, what is your vision of restored and repaired America?

00:06:49
Speaker 2: You mean have heard? I got a couple of jobs, pastor of Ebenezer Church, senator from Georgia. My favorite job, by far is foul absolutely and I have a nine year old daughter and a seven year old son. They tell me what to do and my little mini bosses. And in the real sense, they do tell me what to do, because that's they are why I do this work. I spend a lot of time away from them, more than I'd like, but I have to fight for them. I can't imagine them living in a world with less rights than I had. I have a son to raise and a daughter to raise, and I don't want them to grow up in a space where they feel more constricted than me. Here's the thing we've got to do, though, Man, We've got to recognize that the only way our children, the only way my children are going to be okay, is for other people's children to be okay. Yes, And so I think that that's part of the moral challenge of this moment. It is the ability to look into the eyes of other people's children and see your own. And that's what God's my work every single day. Is the reason why I'm working on this affordability crisis, is the reason why I want to make sure that every child has a chance. I'm fighting for them, and in a real sense, I'm fighting for another kid also. And as that kid who grew up like you in the eighties, I might be loader than you.

00:08:27
Speaker 1: I'm forty five, almost forty six.

00:08:30
Speaker 2: When I think about that kid who grew up in public housing, Yeah, that was us food stand number eleven out of twelve children. And because of the covenant that we have with each other as an American people, because of good public policy, because of Headstart, because of upward Bounds, a good federal program, because of low interest student loans and pell grants, I was able to earn four degrees including a PhD. Politics don't usually admit that they have a PhD such an anti intellectual countries sadly, but I was able to become the pastor of the church led by doctor King, and now I'm a United States CeNAT that The thing that keeps me up at night is the reality that it would be harder for me to do that now than it was for that kid who did it then. And in America, we always want to make sure that our kids are better off than we had it. So that's moving in the wrong direction. And so I'm fighting for that kid who grew up on Cape Street. If that kid's going to be okay, and when I you know, kid grew up in public housing, where the kid grows up in an Appalachias and rural community in Georgia, I'm fighting for those kids absolutely.

00:09:46
Speaker 1: You know, I take a lot of flaks sometimes for stepping into this space because of being a former athlete, and obviously how much Stephen Ah Smith is embarrassing everyone from the athletic space.

00:09:57
Speaker 2: Right, let us have a moment of silence.

00:10:00
Speaker 1: Hey, that guy was really good to me at ESPN, but we'd be having text wards if I showed you some of our tell come on, man, you can't be you can't hot hot text your okay in sports, hot texting not okay when it comes to everyday life. But what I was, what I was trying to say is you know, when I take the heat out, I tell them I'm like, you know, I'm fighting today to see results for my kids. We may not none of visits the room may be here when these results actually take place, and everything we're fighting for today we may not be here to see it, but we know that we have people coming behind us. So that's why I'm so adamant in this space of trying to cross over from sports and just having a platform, in a safe space to do stuff like this with you and sit down with Kamala and sit down you know, with Biden in the past and Gavin Newsome and Obama soon. So my whole thing is providing a safe space where honest, real hard conversation to be had, where you can really learn from these type of conversations. But to your point, it's not fair that this next generation is is not going to be able to kind of live the so called American dream from being able to buy your first house and do all those things you're supposed to do once you get out of college. Like it looks bleak, private businesses are being prioritized in America. Obviously Trump and what he's trying to do from you know, giving the tax breaks to the one percent to hitting us against each other. Is there a light a message? How do we mobilize and utilize similar to how you know we've seen Charlie Kirk and Turning Point get to these college and high school campuses. How do we get the message to this next generation that's going to be so vital to our future.

00:11:53
Speaker 2: Here's my message. We cannot allow ourselves to give into those who are trying to weaponize despair. There are forces at work in our country. As you look at this effort to flood the zone, there's a strategy behind. They want to convince us that there's no need to fight, there's no need to show up. The reason I'm here today and happy to talk to you is, you know, there have been no great movements in our country without young people right and without leaders in culture, arts, the sports, music. And I saw this in my own campaign when I ran in twenty twenty. There I was running for the United States Senate not having run for office before, I'm a pastor. And as it turns out, in the midst of my run, in the early months, we had some awful tragedies in our country. First of all, we were all sheltered in because of COVID. Then we looked up and we saw all of these cases. We saw George Floyd, we saw Breonna Taylor. In my own state of Georgia, a young man you may remember named Armad Barbary was literally just John run and lost his life to hatred, to other ring, to xenophobia. And in the midst of that you had the women of the w NBA who said, we can't be silent. We can dribble the ball, but that isn't all we can do. We have a voice, we have a vision, we have a perspective, and they began to wear those jerseys that say her name. They begin to lift up this issue. And as it turns out, my opponent, the incumbent senator, who was in a hot primary against and being challenged, decided that the best way she could, you know, get her conservative credentials, the best way to appeal to her base in this primary, was to attack the w n B. A while she owned the w n B, a team that's a little bit yeah. So she literally literally decided, you know, I'm gonna use I'm gonna use them, I'm gonna talk about them as a way of talking to other folks. And of course, you know, these are women who know this experience up close. This wasn't theoretical for them. They know they Ahmad Aubrey and and George Floyd, Breonna Taylor. They come from communities where that are over policed and under police, and so there they were frustrated that the person who owned their team was trying to use them in this way. And I ended up meeting with them late one night on a zoom call, and they decided that they were going to support my campaign. Beautiful, but more importantly than standing for me, they were standing up for their communities. And they started getting off their bus one night and they had these black T shirts you all remember this, and had a very simple said vote warnup. Most of the people I was trying to get to vote, they didn't know who Warnock was. But here are these these these sports, these women in sports decided to raise their voice and that was a turning point in my campaign. So here I am sitting here in part because these these women decided to use their voices. All of us have a voice, we all have a platform YouTube and in real sense is the embodiment of all of that, and you ought to use it.

00:15:49
Speaker 1: Absolutely About the current administration, you said they are deployed. They were deploying hatred and divide masked as Christianity. I want you to listen to this sound by from J. D. Manson this past December as he's speaking at Atturning Point USA rally.

00:16:05
Speaker 3: The only thing that is truly served as an anchor of the United States of America is that we have been, and by the grace of God, we always will be, a Christian nation. But over the last fifty years, there has been a singular focus a war that has been waged on Christians and Christianity and the United States of America.

00:16:30
Speaker 1: And let me say, of all the wars.

00:16:33
Speaker 3: That Donald Trump has ended, that is the one we're proud of.

00:16:36
Speaker 1: Stuff As a pastor, what are your thoughts on the rise of religious discourse from this administration. Obviously they're using other tactic in people, they're falling floor, which to me is unbelievable. But someone who's rooted in public service, rooted in.

00:16:55
Speaker 2: The House of the Lord.

00:16:57
Speaker 1: What are your thoughts when you hear stuff like this skewed?

00:17:01
Speaker 2: How much time you see the clock? Listen? He said, this has been going on the last fifty years. The biggest adversary to Christian faith is people who speak in the name of Christianity but continue to behave in ways and support policies that are decidedly anti Christian. And so I'll be taking my cues from Jesus. And now Donald Trump, who said, who said? You know who said I came to preach good news to the poor. I don't know how taking health care from fifteen million Americans as they did, and the one big ugly bill is consistent with that message. We're fighting right now trying to get folks their health care. Know how. Demonizing your neighbors is consistent with that. And so there's a long history to this, you know it. It is the American Christian slaveocracy that is the biggest enemy of Christianity. It is it is the segregationists who oppose Martin Luther King Junior and his movement in the name of faith. Jesus is the biggest victim of identity theft in American history, because because the folk who are so quick to use his name and some of the meanest people I know, and they support some of the meanest policies I know. And by the way, a big part of what it means for me to be a Christian is to be hospitable and welcoming and respect full of other people who get to the center but by a different route. And that is the beauty of this American experiment. We are a multifaceted democratic republic where people of various faith traditions have decided that we're going to be in covenant with one another, and people who claim no faith tradition at all. And so JD. Vans ought to leave the preaching to meet and he ought to go back and review his notes from Yale Law School that says that government will not establish religion, and that protects not only the state from the church. More importantly, it protects or just as importantly, it protects the church from state.

00:19:47
Speaker 1: Speaking to doctor Kings, Youth followed in similar footsteps. Obviously, pastor at the same church attended Morehouse College. He had a quote that said, there comes a time when silence is betrayal. What is the right way to speak out and force change in twenty twenty six, obviously outside of probably the most important mid terms we've ever had, getting out there and actually voting and making your voice heard. What are some other things, strategies, ways you would recommend people speak out and force the issue.

00:20:24
Speaker 2: There's really no limit to that, and I think people just have to lean into their own gifts and their own opportunities and possibilities. But raise your voice. I'll tell you this. You know, even on this platform, which you know, which does a lot of good, and you know social media is important, I just want you to do a little bit more than just a post and a hashtag. I think I think that has you know, sometimes feel like folks. I think sometimes folks, you know, they post there there, they put up a post or hashtag and don't vote. Nobody counts hashtags. They count votes. So make sure you vote, you know, make sure you should up. And there are various ways to do that. Artists and all of us have a voice, all of us, and what bothers me is people who are silent, and silence normalizes atrocities that are happening in real time, and so we can n I'll afford to be silent.

00:21:20
Speaker 1: I want to talk a little bit about your your race. You touch on a little bit with herschel Walker, right, that's my brother historical battleground campaign strategies. Obviously, his campaigned on anti abortion, and even though some skeletons came out in the closet where that didn't seem too true, you are very pro choice. What are just your thoughts on I guess on just how Republicans feel like a few men in a closed off room can decide and make decisions for women.

00:21:59
Speaker 2: I think it's wrong it look. As a pastor, as a person of faith, I have a deed reverence for life. I also have an abiding respect for choice. And you know, as I've said many many times, I just think that a patients room is too narrow and cramped the space for a woman her doctor. In the United States government, there's just too many people in the room. The issue is issue is whose decision is it? And I've been consistent in my perspective on that, and I think we saw we've seen, particularly in recent days, it's this debate has raged on in recent months, the tragedy that happened when government gets involved. We've had some really awful, high profile cases in Georgia of young women who literally could be and should be alive today, but because of awful legislation pass asked mostly by men. We have cases where women were literally lying in a hospital bed in arms reach other help that they needed, and they couldn't get it because the medical experts, the doctors who would normally know exactly what to do, felt like they couldn't move and women have literally lost their lives as a result of that. For me, being pro life means to stand up for children, is to stand up is to make sure that people actually have health care once they're here, to make sure that they have access to a good quality education. And so you know, I've found ways to work with my colleagues who may disagree with me on the choice question around just healthcare. If you really are concerned about life, then you ought to be offended that in the wealthiest nation on the planet and the wealthiest nation in human history, that our maternal health, our maternal death rate is as high as it is like we are. We have the dubious distinction that no other wealthy nation comes close to the number of women who die in the United States of America trying to bring a baby in the world, and for black women is criminally high. It's three times the rate of their white sisters, even when they have the insurance and the income. So I've worked with my Republican colleagues. In fact, I worked with Marco Rubio when he was in a Senate on a bill to deal with these disparities and maternal health care. So that's an issue I'll keep working on and it's deeply important to me. Doctor King used to say that of all the injustices inequality and healthcare, it's the most shocking and the most in you, Maine, And so it's just debate. Rage is all about health care in our country. I want to make sure that poor people, the working poor, middle class people, ordinary people have access to healthcare.

00:25:21
Speaker 1: Well, Senator, we appreciate your time. Before we get you out of here, we want to have a little bit of fun with some fun questions. So I got a few quick hitters. So first thing that comes to your minds, let me know what your thoughts are you plus five dinner guests dead are alive, So you you have five guests with anybody in history.

00:25:38
Speaker 2: Who are your five dinner guests? Wow, anybody, anybody, five of your friends, let's sit down have this conversation. I love that. That's gonna give you in trouble. I'll stop right.

00:25:49
Speaker 1: Then one album you can listen to on repeat.

00:25:54
Speaker 2: Stevie wond The Songs and the Key of Life, and then Educational.

00:26:00
Speaker 1: Lordof one of the greatest albums ever. Who taught you the most about leadership outside of politics?

00:26:08
Speaker 2: Outside of politics? Who taught me the most about leadership?

00:26:13
Speaker 1: My dad?

00:26:16
Speaker 2: Morning routine or night out morning routine?

00:26:21
Speaker 1: Favorite Atlanta spot to decompress acts a restaurant? Do you have any any place you'd like to go? Come on now, y'all get your This is not what's so funny about it. We're not We're not talking about hot ways in the script club. We're talking about is there a lounge?

00:26:39
Speaker 2: Is there?

00:26:40
Speaker 1: Is there a restaurant anywhere you like to relax when you have some downtime?

00:26:45
Speaker 2: Ah Raphael's the back porch of bus.

00:26:51
Speaker 1: If you had a billboard that had a message to this country, what.

00:26:56
Speaker 2: Would it be, Keep the faith keep looking up?

00:26:59
Speaker 1: I love it well, Senator, Thank you for your time today. YouTube again, thank you for having a Thanks everybody, Thank you guys for showing up and understand how important our voices are. Continue to use your voice.

00:27:16
Speaker 2: Thank you again. YouTube m