Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-GA) went on MS NOW's The Briefing Wednesday and described President Donald Trump as "a defanged old lion who's wounded," remarks he tied to the Supreme Court's Callais decision and the fight over mid-election redistricting.
"What I've been saying is that evil always goes too far, and therefore it contains the seeds of its own undoing," Warnock said during the appearance, according to Breitbart, which first flagged the clip. The Georgia Democrat paired the lion line with criticism of the high court's Callais ruling, per separate coverage of the same interview.
The Callais ruling is the Supreme Court's decision on the Louisiana congressional map — a case that has reshaped how courts treat race-conscious redistricting and opened the door to mid-decade map redraws in several states. Warnock's complaint, as reported, was aimed at the ruling and what it means for minority voting strength in the South. It is not yet known precisely which maps Warnock was referring to during the segment or whether his office plans to push for specific legislation in response.
Who Warnock Is
Warnock is the senior pastor of Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta — Martin Luther King Jr.'s former pulpit — and has won two statewide races in Georgia, a state that flipped blue in 2020 and has stayed competitive since. CNN's 2028 contender roundup, published a day before the MS NOW hit, described him as a candidate who "can talk about faith and righteousness in a way that many Democrats cannot," and noted his outreach to Black voters in South Carolina, the first Democratic primary state. The same CNN piece flagged a hurdle: many Democrats would rather see his Georgia colleague, Sen. Jon Ossoff, run instead.
In an interview with theGrio published Tuesday, Warnock said Democratic donors laughed at him this spring when he urged them to invest in Scott Colom's Mississippi Senate race. Colom won, becoming the first Black American from Mississippi elected to the Senate since Reconstruction. "Well, I think I had the last laugh," Warnock told theGrio. "More importantly, Mississippi and Scott Colom have the last laugh." Warnock said he raised $750,000 directly for Colom and made the case that Democrats should stop writing off the South.
Two days before that, Warnock declined to commit to Sen. Chuck Schumer as Democratic leader, saying he was open to hearing from other candidates as the caucus debated its leadership after winning control in last week's midterms.
The Redistricting Fight Behind the Line
The "defanged" language lands in the middle of a live legal and political battle. The Callais decision gave states more room to defend maps that lower courts had struck down, and both parties are now racing to redraw districts ahead of the next cycle. Warnock's argument is that Trump's influence is fading even as his party holds power — a claim Democrats are testing in courtrooms and state legislatures across the South.
For Georgia voters, the practical question is which congressional lines they will actually vote under. Georgia's map has been litigated repeatedly since 2020, and any post-Callais redraw would affect who represents Atlanta's suburbs, Macon and Savannah. It is not yet known whether Georgia's legislature will take up a new map in the current session.
Republicans, for their part, have pointed to Warnock's own rhetoric as evidence Democrats are struggling to adjust to a political map that no longer favors them. The White House has not publicly responded to the "old lion" remark, and it is not known whether it will.
Our Take
Give Warnock credit for the honesty of the metaphor: he called the President a wounded animal because he believes the Supreme Court took the teeth out of the administration's redistricting strategy. That is a tell. When a senator starts describing his opponents as dangerous but declining, he is usually describing his own frustration.
Here is what Warnock is actually admitting. The Callais ruling did not go his way, the mid-decade map fight is not going his way, and his own party just spent an election cycle where donors laughed at him for suggesting the South was winnable — until it was. He is positioning himself as the Democrat who saw it coming, which is exactly what a 2028 candidate does before he announces.
The President is 80 years old and has been counted out by the press more times than anyone can tally. The people who called him finished in 2016, in 2020, and after every indictment are the same people now producing segments on cable news calling him a lion without claws. Warnock should be careful. Lions that are wounded are still lions, and the people doing the wounding tend to get remembered.
Georgians, meanwhile, should watch their legislature and their courts — not the cable hits. The map you vote under matters more than any metaphor a senator floats on a Wednesday afternoon.
