In 'Breaking Bread,' conversations with politicians over shared meals highlight shared humanity

Caption

Alexander Heffner speaks with Sen. Raphael Warnock in Savannah, Ga. in the new season of 'Breaking Bread'.

Season 2 of Breaking Bread premiered July 4. The series of conversations with political leaders, hosted by PBS host Alexander Heffner, attempts to highlight the bipartisanship and empathy that goes unnoticed in the daily headlines. Each episode uses food to open a conversation about compromise, democracy and restoring faith in our government. Heffner spoke with GPB's Peter Biello.

TRANSCRIPT

Peter Biello: So this season features Georgia's Sen. Raphael Warnock. And we'll talk a little bit about your chat with him in a bit. But first, I wanted to hear from you about how you went about choosing this group of politicians you've got. Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey, Colorado Gov. Jared Polis, Arizona's Sen. Mark Kelly, Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, among others. What qualities were you looking for in a good guest for this series?

Alexander Heffner: Taking their job seriously is the prerequisite, and understanding their commitment to constituents and to bettering the lives of their neighbors. If they could wave a magic wand, we would have a more functional politics. And that's what the series is about: bringing people together for dialogue and deliberation that's animated by and informed by decency and the universal language of food.

Peter Biello: Why food as the basis for a conversation? What is it about food that helps guests open up?

Alexander Heffner: There's a disarming quality. There is a euphoria. There is a candor and plain spokenness. Often, Thanksgiving is cited as a way you can actually negotiate and navigate some difficult conversations with family members. And July Fourth, we don't talk about quite as much, but in this season, there are three forms of hot dogs. You've got the chili dogs with Sen. Moran, you've got the Sonoran dog bacon wrapped with Sen. Kelly of Arizona, and you got the crab dip hot dog at Camden Yards with Gov. Moore. I mean, if you're starting with people's humanity, as opposed to whether they're a Republican or Democrat or a self-defined conservative or liberal, you're going to be more effective, I think, in getting to the outcome of political life. It's not supposed to be about disparaging tweets, viral messages. It's supposed to be about what's possible. And we've lost that sense. And that's something I hope this season conveys.

Peter Biello: How much trouble did you have pushing past the politician's impulse to use lines from a stump speech or other kind of carefully crafted, focus group-tested lines?

Alexander Heffner: I think when you highlight the positive attributes of communities and then, in effect, prime them to envision how we we can improve more, how things can get better, rather than starting from the criticism or controversy, your question is well taken because you do have to transcend the talking points and — and really be frank in addressing the concerns of our country and these various states that I visited.

Peter Biello: You met with Sen. Raphael Warnock in Savannah. You spoke to him about a variety of things. You also spoke to him about Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s dream and the status of that dream today. And his response was interesting. Warnock says it's important to pay attention to the overall arc of history, and he gives credit to King, but also other civil rights leaders who helped make life better for his generation.

Sen. Raphael Warnock: "I never had to drink from a "colored" water fountain. I never was asked, like my dad, to sit on the back of a bus. And I'm also the beneficiary of good federal public policy that came out of the civil rights era. I'm an alum of Head Start, a program that gives young, poor children a chance by making sure that they get exposed to literacy and books. I'm an alum of the Upward Bound Program, another good federal public policy program."

Peter Biello: What did you take away from your conversation with Sen. Warnock?

Alexander Heffner: My overall takeaway is: Here's this minister, reverend, theologian, who is the most fervent champion of our democracy. Being with him in the backdrop of Savannah — and it is kind of like the colonial "sweetness of the bay" colony, right? I mean, it's the, when you're — when you're there with the Spanish moss and the picturesque architecture. I felt like I was talking to someone who really had captured a sense of history and a conviction in democracy.