On Thursday, two of America’s leading voices for the religious left—CBS’s Stephen Colbert and Sen. Raphael Warnock—joined forces on The Late Show to prepare for Easter by attacking Republicans as un-Christian with some casual Jim Crow and slavery analogies.
Colbert asked, “I'm going to ask you a simple question that people doubt sometimes. What is the value of hope?”
While Warnock did answer the question, he used it as an opportunity to dunk on Republicans, “Oh, hope is everything, and when you lose hope, you stop fighting, and there are those right now, I mean we can talk about the cuts and all of these things that I'm happy to talk about that. I think they are trying to push a rather immoral budget through the Congress right now where you rob from the poor in order to give to the rich, but the other—”
Colbert interrupted to add, “The famous saying goes: Show me your budget, and I'll show you where the value is.”
The guy whose church gave him a nearly $1 million tax-free luxury home, continued, “Yes, it's Robin Hood in reverse, and I think a budget is not just a fiscal document, it's a moral document, but the other thing that’s happening in our country right now is that there are those who are trying to weaponize despair. They’re flooding the zone, and they are hoping you won't fight, and you need to prove them wrong. I still believe that the power in this country really does rest with the people and not the people in power.”
Later, Colbert continued with the idea that disagreeing with liberals on economics makes one a bad Christian, “The Bible often talks about caring for the elderly, for the poor. Those who have the least power, the least of my brothers. And why do you think a nation that so frequently wants to describe itself as a Christian nation or one having Judeo-Christian values wants to shirk that collective responsibility to our brothers and sisters?”
Warnock went straight to Jim Crow and slavery comparisons, “Well, you know, that has a long history, and it's frustrating in this moment, but we've seen this before. There were a whole lot of Christians who were on the wrong side of the slavery question, the wrong side of the Jim Crow segregation question, but as I read the scripture, there are more than 2,000 verses in the Bible that tell you how to treat the poor.”
The pastor whose church will evict you if you miss your rent payment by so much as a day because you accidently had a typo in your payment information or owe as little as $28.55, rolled on:
I’m a Matthew 25 Christian. Jesus said, ‘I was hungry and you fed me. I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink. I was sick. I was in prison, and you visited me,’ and someone said to the master ‘When were you hungry? When were you sick? When were you in prison?’ And he said, ‘Inasmuch as you have done it unto the least of these, you’ve also done it also unto me.’ And so what I try to do in my preaching and in my work in the Senate is center the most marginalized members of the human family, center the least of these. Give ordinary people a chance.
Warnock may not practice what he preaches, but he does allow Colbert’s liberal audience to feel good about themselves, and for Colbert himself, that is what matters most.
Here is a transcript for the April 17-taped show:
CBS The Late Show with Stephen Colbert
4/18/2025
12:07 AM ET
STEPHEN COLBERT: What's the value, I'm going to ask you a simple question—
RAPHAEL WARNOCK: Sure.
COLBERT: -- that people doubt sometimes. What is the value of hope?
WARNOCK: Oh, hope is everything, and when you lose hope, you stop fighting, and there are those right now, I mean we can talk about the cuts and all of these things that I'm happy to talk about that. I think they are trying to push a rather immoral budget through the Congress right now where you rob from the poor in order to give to the rich, but the other—
COLBERT: The famous saying goes: Show me your budget, and I'll show you where the value is.
WARNOCK: Yes, it's Robin Hood in reverse, and I think a budget is not just a fiscal document, it's a moral document, but the other thing that’s happening in our country right now is that there are those who are trying to weaponize despair.
They’re flooding the zone, and they are hoping you won't fight, and you need to prove them wrong. I still believe that the power in this country really does rest with the people and not the people in power.
And if a kid who grew up in public housing, number 11 of 12 children, first college graduate in his family can become a United States senator, anything is still possible in America.
…
COLBERT: The Bible often talks about caring for the elderly, for the poor. Those who have the least power, the least of my brothers.
WARNOCK: That’s right.
COLBERT: And why do you think a nation that so frequently wants to describe itself as a Christian nation or one having Judeo-Christian values wants to shirk that collective responsibility to our brothers and sisters?
WARNOCK: Well, you know, that has a long history, and it's frustrating in this moment, but we've seen this before. There were a whole lot of Christians who were on the wrong side of the slavery question, the wrong side of the Jim Crow segregation question, but as I read the scripture, there are more than 2,000 verses in the Bible that tell you how to treat the poor. I’m a Matthew 25 Christian. Jesus said, “I was hungry and you fed me. I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink. I was sick. I was in prison, and you visited me,” and someone said to the master “When were you hungry? When were you sick? When were you in prison?” And he said, “Inasmuch as you have done it unto the least of these, you’ve also done it also unto me.”
And so what I try to do in my preaching and in my work in the Senate is center the most marginalized members of the human family, center the least of these. Give ordinary people a chance.
Not only is that the right thing to do, as it turns out, very often the right thing to do is the smart thing to do, too. I think our economy will be a whole lot better off if we give tax cuts to ordinary people, middle-class people, working-class people rather than billionaires.
