Transcript: Sen. Raphael Warnock on "Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan," May 3, 2026

Face The Nation Transcripts Transcript: Sen. Raphael Warnock on "Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan," May 3, 2026 .chip { background-image: url('/fly/bundles/cbsnewscore/images/chip-bgd/chip-bgd-face-the-nation.jpg'); } May 3, 2026 / 10:25 AM EDT / CBS News Add CBS News on Google The following is the transcript of the interview with Sen. Raphael Warnock, Democrat of Georgia, that aired on "Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan" on May 3, 2026.MARGARET BRENNAN: Last week, in a 6-3 decision, the Supreme Court struck down a 2022 Louisiana congressional map that had been gerrymandered to create a second majority-Black district. The three liberal justices dissented, saying the ruling would quote, "eviscerate" a section of the landmark 1965 Voting Rights Act, while conservatives in the majority said the decision "updated" its legal framework. Reverend Raphael Warnock, democratic senator from the state of Georgia, joins us this morning from Atlanta. Welcome back to the program.SEN. REV. RAPHAEL WARNOCK: Good morning.MARGARET BRENNAN: So our CBS News legal analyst described this decision as narrowing the application of Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. Effectively, it means it's now going to be harder to bring any lawsuits claiming that gerrymandering discriminates along racial lines unless there is proof of that intent. Why do you call that a defeat for American democracy?SEN. WARNOCK: Margaret, let's be clear, what happened this week is nothing less than a massive and devastating blow, not only to our democracy, but particularly to people of color in the South. This question about intent is on its head, misleading, and it ignores our history. We had 100 years after the 15th Amendment was passed, which, on paper, gave Black people the right to vote, but with supposedly or putatively race neutral methods. For 100 years, the right to vote was denied. But in more recent history, the Supreme Court, this same conservative Supreme Court, hobbled Section 5 of the Voting Righ...