Senator Raphael Warnock of Georgia spoke Tuesday on MSNBC after host Chris Hayes asked about Pope Leo’s surgery to remove a cancerous section of lung and about the pontiff’s wider moral role. Warnock, a Democrat and longtime senior pastor at Ebenezer Baptist Church, described the present period as ethically fraught under a president unusually adept at splitting the public.

He said an American pope now occupies the Vatican and that Pope Leo’s counsel carries weight, pointing people toward better conduct and criticizing the president’s appetite for conflict, which prompted a reply from the vice president, a well-known Catholic in office. Warnock said he is praying for the pope’s strength and recovery and for the country’s well-being.