Read: “We can’t make our elections about being against Trump”

Foer: As I was thinking about your descriptions of love, I went back and read some King.

Booker: By the way, this year I decided to go back to King myself. I’ve read The Radical King and King’s collection of speeches on labor, a really great compendium. But you could also take Fred Shuttlesworth, one of the great civil-rights leaders, whose whole house was bombed numerous times, whose wife was stabbed. I mean, he embodied and preached the same idea of beloved community, the debt we owe each other.

Foer: The hard part of it is the loving of your oppressor, loving the one who hates you.

Booker: Yes, but isn’t that the call? I had this interesting experience in the Midwest when I was visiting farms. Someone called up the guy that was giving me the tour and said, “I can’t have Cory Booker in my home.” The person said, “Why?” They said, “Well, we’re a Christian household.” My tour guide laughed and said, “Cory’s a Christian, too.” But they had watched something, I think it was from Fox News, and they thought I was just this really bad human being. My host, in a sort of tickled way, just reminded the person of his own faith values. Then when we got together—it’s hard to hate somebody that you sit down with—we ended up having an incredible connection.

Foer: To pose the obvious and vexing question, can you find love for Donald Trump?

Booker: When I gave a speech at the convention, Trump tweeted something really mean about me, veiledly dark. You know, almost a weird kind of attack on me.

Foer: Who would expect that from a Trump tweet?

Booker: Then next morning, I’m out with Chris Cuomo on CNN and he puts up the tweet. I think he was trying to get a rise out of me. He goes, “What do you have to say to Donald Trump?” I said, “I love you Donald Trump. I don’t want you to be my president; I’m going to work very hard against you. But I’m never going to let you twist me and drag me down so low as to hate you.”

Foer: But not hating Donald Trump is different than actually finding love for Donald Trump.

Booker: My faith tradition is love your enemies. It’s not complicated for me, if I aspire to be who I say I am. I am a Christian American. Literally written in the ideals of my faith is to love those who hate you. I don’t see why that’s so shocking. But that doesn’t mean that I will be complicit in oppression. That doesn’t mean I will be tolerant of hatred.

Something I talked about in my New Hampshire speeches and New Hampshire house parties is the example of Lindsey Graham and what he said during the [Brett] Kavanaugh hearings. One side might call it a rant, one side might call it a noble exposition. But I have to say, I was not happy about it. Obviously he made me angry; obviously I disagreed with what he was saying. But just a few weeks later, he and I are on the phone to the White House. He is defending one of the provisions I want in the criminal-justice-reform bill that’s heading to the floor now, effectively ending juvenile solitary confinement. He was a partner with me.