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{"id":23918,"date":"2026-06-09T20:17:24","date_gmt":"2026-06-09T20:17:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/raphael-warnock-meets-with-mike-johnson-after-questioning-speakers-christian-faith\/"},"modified":"2026-06-09T20:17:24","modified_gmt":"2026-06-09T20:17:24","slug":"raphael-warnock-meets-with-mike-johnson-after-questioning-speakers-christian-faith","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/raphael-warnock-meets-with-mike-johnson-after-questioning-speakers-christian-faith\/","title":{"rendered":"Raphael Warnock meets with Mike Johnson after questioning speaker\u2019s Christian faith"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<p>Sen. Raphael Warnock met Tuesday with Speaker Mike Johnson after the Republican leader requested the Democratic senator privately discuss comments Warnock made regarding Johnson\u2019s faith in a recent interview.<\/p>\n<p>Warnock was <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/video\/podcasts\/100000010953787\/would-mike-johnson-pass-raphael-warnocks-test.html\" target=\"_blank\"><u>asked in the New York Times Q&amp;A<\/u><\/a> about Johnson praying ahead of the passage last year of the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.com\/news\/2025\/07\/03\/house-passes-gop-megabill-00438206\" target=\"_blank\"><u>GOP megabill<\/u><\/a> that included tax cuts and reductions in social-service programs and how he \u201cunderstands that.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Warnock, the pastor of a prominent Atlanta church, responded that he is a \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.biblegateway.com\/passage\/?search=Matthew%2025&amp;version=NRSVUE\" target=\"_blank\"><u>Matthew 25<\/u><\/a> Christian,\u201d referencing the chapter of the Gospel where Jesus describes the responsibility of the faithful to treat the hungry, sick and foreign with compassion.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI don&#8217;t understand how you read that, say a long prayer, hold hands with your fellow legislators, and then cut a trillion dollars \u2014 $1 trillion \u2014 out of Medicaid calling it waste, fraud, and abuse,\u201d Warnock said.<\/p>\n<p>Leaving the meeting in Johnson\u2019s office, Warnock said he raised the very same point personally to the speaker on Tuesday.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe talked about the policy, and we agreed to disagree,\u201d he said. \u201cBut we also talked about our faith and our upbringing, and that, for me, was important because I think just at a human level it would help around this place if we had more authentic conversations across our differences.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe stakes are too high for us to be engaged in political fencing around here and not have authentic conversations at a human level about why you believe what you believe,\u201d he continued. \u201cAnd so I left hopeful that we might have more of that kind of conversation.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Johnson struck a similar note in a statement: \u201cI was happy to meet with Senator Warnock today and have a positive, fruitful discussion about matters of faith and our different opinions regarding public policy. Such dialogue is important because it is always more productive to have these conversations face to face.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Warnock and a spokesperson for the speaker both confirmed Johnson requested the meeting after the Times interview was published.<\/p>\n<p>Warnock described the tone of the approximately 30-minute meeting as \u201chonest, candid\u201d and \u201crespectful.\u201d He said that the two men exchanged phone numbers and agreed to stay in touch.<\/p>\n<p>Johnson, a devout evangelical Christian, often talks about his faith as he navigates his slim majority and near-constant GOP infighting. He often cites the Bible and advised President Donald Trump earlier this year to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.com\/live-updates\/2026\/04\/14\/congress\/johnson-trump-jesus-picture-00871804\" target=\"_blank\"><u>take down a photo<\/u><\/a> from his Truth Social account that depicted Trump as Jesus.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI think there are people gathered in this building every week who go to church on Sunday,\u201d Warnock said after the meeting. \u201cAnd I just sometimes wonder what their preacher is preaching about. The gospels that I preach center the poor.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Sen. Raphael Warnock met Tuesday with Speaker Mike Johnson after the Republican leader requested the Democratic senator privately discuss comments Warnock made regarding Johnson\u2019s faith in a recent interview. Warnock was asked in the New York Times Q&amp;A about Johnson praying ahead of the passage last year of the GOP megabill that included tax cuts [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23918","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-congress"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23918","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23918"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23918\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23918"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23918"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23918"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}