WARNOCK: To which I say that because Georgia stood up, we passed the single largest tax cut for middle and working-class families in American history. KELLY: A lot of people listening in Georgia and across the country look at these issues we're talking about, whether it's voting rights or abortion or gun safety and say, hey, Democrats, you control Congress. And the question is, which way are we going to go? And it's our responsibility as citizens, I think, to push us closer towards our ideals. January 5 and January 6 each tell us something important about America. That's what's at stake in this election and at this moment. And so that's the question before us right now. On January 5, the country - Georgia sent a Black man and a Jewish man, both mentored by John Lewis in different ways to the Senate. And those laws and the passing of those laws was informed by the big lie, January 6, the most violent attack on our Capitol.īut here's what's also true - January 5 is also true. After I was elected, we saw the emergence of voter suppression laws across dozens of states.
Our democracy is imperiled, and it's the reason why I was pushing so hard over the course of the last year or so, the moment I got here to pass voting rights in our country. But you don't see this as an unusually dangerous moment for our democracy? You and I are speaking as the, you know, January 6, the public hearings for the investigation into all of that are underway on Capitol Hill. There are moments when it contracts, but even contractions open the possibility for new birth and new hope and so on. It gets a little closer towards those ideals. And over the course of time, our democracy expands. And I wonder, does it sometimes feel to you like the country is moving in the wrong direction, that we are more divided than ever? And right now, we're in the middle of these hugely polarized national debates over abortion and gun violence and school shootings. And I was thinking about since that day, summer of 2020, we have had, of course, more police shootings and the big lie and the January 6 insurrection. And you told me then - you talked about the responsibility to speak up in that moment, to work for change. The first was right after George Floyd was killed. KELLY: You know, this is the fourth time I have interviewed you. WARNOCK: Trumpet and baritone horn (laughter). My brothers, as I discuss in the book, they were the athletes of the family. And acknowledging that if that was the race with your opponent, you would understand if voters went the other way. There's one that shows you running with a football. You've had some fun in in your campaign ads. And in their name and memory, I continue that struggle for voting rights, for access to health care, which I believe is a human right, and for the struggles of ordinary, hardworking Georgia families.
and Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel were smiling because when they marched, they marched alongside one another, fighting for voting rights. And as a result of that, I was elected not only the first Black senator from Georgia, but we elected my friend and brother, Jon Ossoff, the first Jewish senator from Georgia.Īnd I think somewhere in glory, Martin Luther King Jr. And about a decade ago, as some of us were looking at what was happening in Georgia, we saw a path to build a multiracial majority that could create a coalition that could achieve something like this. Long before I showed up, people have been building on the multiracial promise of an America that embraces all of us.
WARNOCK: My story is a result of work that's been going on a long time. KELLY: In the book, he writes that back in 2013, when he was first considering running, he didn't see a path for an African American Democrat to win in Georgia. It is an expression born of oppression and travail and yet keeping the faith, even in the midst of struggle. RAPHAEL WARNOCK: You're not in the churches that I grew up in too long on a Sunday morning, before you hear in sermon, in prayer, perhaps even in song that our God makes a way out of no way. And now he's out with a memoir titled "A Way Out Of No Way." Warnock is also the senior pastor at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, the church that Martin Luther King Jr. He'll face Republican Herschel Walker, a former football star. Senator Raphael Warnock is a Democrat from Georgia up for reelection this year.