Warnock: People in despair about politics should not give up hope

Tia Mitchell, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution on Apr 18, 2025

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Late-night TV host Stephen Colbert didn’t look for laughs from U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock, who was a guest on his “Late Show” Thursday night.

Instead, Colbert asked Warnock for advice on what Americans unhappy with the direction of the country under President Donald Trump should do with their despair and frustrations.

Warnock drew from his dual roles as a Georgia senator and head pastor of Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, describing the feeling as “soul weary.”

“Folks in my business try to capture it with these polls,” he said. “Are we on the right track? Wrong track? I think those questions are important, but they don’t really get to the heart of really what’s going on. There’s a kind of angst.”

Warnock said there is much he is fighting against as a member of the Senate, including a Republican-led budget bill that would extend tax cuts for the wealthy and could lead to steep cuts in programs for the poor, like Medicaid. He also said he planned to continue speaking against Trump’s plan to drastically increase tariffs on foreign goods.

“It’s a sales tax, really, on ordinary people,” Warnock said. “So, while they’re raising the taxes on ordinary people, because that’s whose paying for this, they’re very focused on giving a tax cut to billionaires.”

The senator, a Democrat, told Colbert that even with all his concerns, he remained hopeful that his work can make a difference. And he implored the live studio audience and viewers at home to not allow their despair to convince them to give up.

“Hope is everything,” he said. “And when you lose hope, you stop fighting.”

There were some lighter moments during the 10-minute interview. Colbert said he appreciated having a pastor on the show during Holy Week, and Warnock said he would be preaching at Ebenezer on Easter Sunday.

They concluded by discussing Warnock’s new children’s book, “We’re in This Together: Leo’s Lunch Box.” The book is loosely based on the Bible story of Jesus feeding a great crowd with just a few fish and loaves of bread.

“What I hope to do in this book is encourage us to create a community of compassion and to teach our children about generosity, about empathy, about caring for others,” he said.

Warnock said his hope is that, as adults read the book to their children, they embrace the lessons for themselves, adding that he would like to get the book in the hands of all of his colleagues in Congress.

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