Recently, I sat down with Senator Raphael Warnock for an interview. Senator Warnock is more than a member of Congress. He’s a pastor at the historic Ebenezer Baptist Church, where his moral clarity and leadership is celebrated. During this deeply worrying time for our democracy, I've been looking forward to this conversation, and I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.
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September 14, 2025
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Recently, I sat down with Senator Raphael Warnock for an interview. Senator Warnock is more than a member of Congress. He’s a pastor at the historic Ebenezer Baptist Church, where his moral clarity and leadership is celebrated. During this deeply worrying time for our democracy, I've been looking forward to this conversation, and I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
This conversation will be posted on YouTube on Monday. Please enjoy this exclusive, sneak peak.
Marc Elias: Senator Raphael Warnock, welcome to Defending Democracy.
Raphael Warnock: Great to be with you, Marc.
Marc Elias: I really needed to talk to you. There is so much going on in the world right now that people are worried about. Democracy feels like it is under attack in our nation's streets, in our city streets, in the halls of Congress where you are, and frankly, in our neighborhoods. The White House seems to have no respect for the rule of law.
Before I turn to your current role, it is rare that I get the chance to talk to someone who had a more impactful career before they came to the U.S. Senate. But you were — and are — the senior pastor at the Ebenezer Baptist Church, which for people who don't know, is arguably the most historic church in America. This is where Martin Luther King Jr. preached, and it has an absolutely historic and unmatched place in American history around issues of democracy and justice. So, I'm not sure which hat to ask you to put on, but how do you make sense of this moment in the struggle?
I'll be honest, I have confessed that I sometimes doubt that the arc of the moral universe is long but bends towards justice. I believe it is long. But what do you say to people like me who are losing faith that it is bending towards justice?
Raphael Warnock: Well, thank you so much. It's always good to chat with you. You rightly point out that these are dark days, difficult times. As I move around the state of Georgia, talk to my own parishioners, and move across the country, there is a kind of foreboding, a sense of despair.
What I want to say at the outset is that this despair is actually...
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