On Monday evening, Sen. Cory Booker stood on the Senate floor and began a speech criticizing the Trump administration.
The 55-year-old Democrat from New Jersey kept talking and talking — through the night and into the next day — for 25 hours and 5 minutes.
He did not sit. He did not eat. He did not use the restroom.
"The body is weary in a lot of places, from my back to my feet and to my legs, I'm just feeling it," Booker told All Things Considered host Juana Summers. "But my soul is soaring and I feel very blessed by the whole experience."
His effort, which involved dozens of fellow Senate Democrats asking questions to relieve his speaking burden, set a record for the longest speech on record in the chamber. It surpassed the previous record set in 1957 by segregationist Sen. Strom Thurmond, who filibustered for 24 hours and 18 minutes to oppose the Civil Rights Act.
Booker started his speech at 7 p.m. Monday and pledged to use his time to disrupt "the normal business of the United States Senate for as long as I am physically able."
"In just 71 days, the president has inflicted harm after harm on Americans' safety, financial stability, the foundations of our democracy and any sense of common decency," he said in his introductory remarks. "These are not normal times in our nation. And they should not be treated as such in the United States Senate."
Booker had said his impassioned anti-Trump speech comes at a time when many constituents are questioning the direction of the party.
"I think we could not talk about the party and start talking about the people," he told NPR. "I really think that we have got to start having a bolder vision of who we are as a country, not just about who we're against as the other party."
When asked for comment on Booker's speech before he set the record, a White House spokesperson issued a statement to several news outlets:
"Cory Booker is looking for another 'I am Spartacus' moment, but that didn't work for his failed presidential campaign, and it didn't work to block President Trump's Supreme Court nominee, Brett Kavanaugh. When will he realize he's not Spartacus — he's a spoof?" the spokesperson, Harrison Fields, said in a statement.
This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.
Interview highlights
Juana Summers: Democrats and those who oppose President Trump, they've been crying out for your party to do something really to do anything to stand up to the president. And following fiery public rhetoric like yours there in the Senate, how do you harness that momentum and to substantive, real action?
Cory Booker: Well, I really wanted to as much as possible, and I know that it is what it is. But I tried as much as possible to frame my remarks, not about left or right, but right or wrong, that this was a moral moment because a lot of the policies — and I know this from talking to my Republican colleagues — are not widely agreed upon by either side. And, you know, a lot of things that [Trump is] doing that he didn't even run on. And the challenges to American people, whose voices I tried to bring into my speech and read dozens of real Americans from all across the country, especially New Jersey, but on both sides of the political aisle, just really saying that these policies are morally wrong and they're going to hurt people. And so, I hope that perhaps this is one of many ignition points that get people to kind of galvanize and come together and stop him from doing a lot of these things, like we did in 2017, when Americans from all backgrounds were able to stop him, along with three Republican senators from taking away health care for millions of people.
Summers: I do want to talk about some of the issues that you brought up. You highlighted a number of issues, among them protecting Medicaid, Medicare and Social Security from possible cuts from the Trump administration. Do Democrats and those who want to protect those programs have a plan to actually do so?
Booker: Well, we know the reality right now. They're going to use a budget process that necessitates no Democratic votes. And since they're in the majority, that process means that we do not have the votes as Democrats alone to stop them. But you hear Republicans, a guy like [Congressman Thomas] Massie in the House, who has said very boldly, I will not vote for this because it creates trillions of dollars of new budget obligations, just expands the deficit. And I think appealing to the moral and character and, frankly, principles of the other side that they use. And they say and that's why during the speech, I brought in so many Republican think tanks, Republican voices, Republican governors. And this cannot be a Democratic only win that we're looking for. The only way to win now is by waking up and engaging with people on both sides of the political aisle. And the real reasons to stop this because it makes no fiscal sense to create trillions of dollars of more obligations for our grandchildren. It makes no sense to take money away from programs like Medicaid, all to give tax cuts that disproportionately go to the wealthiest amongst us. That's, I think, most people's sort of principles that violates.
Summers: You mentioned that Democrats can't go it alone. I don't have to tell you, Republicans hold majority control of the House and the Senate. What have you been hearing from your Republican colleagues in the wake of the speech?
Booker: I got a lot of hugs from my Republican colleagues. I think people might find that surprising, but a lot of people just appreciated, I think, the fact that it was Strom Thurmond's record, bothered my Republican colleagues as well as Democratic colleagues. And they were happy to see me smash that record, even if they didn't agree with all the points I made during my remarks. Others have said to me, you know, there's a lot of things that I said that they can agree with, even though there's things they disagreed with. So, I've had an experience in this in the Senate getting some big bills done by finding common ground. I think this is a time where the party knows how over the top Donald Trump is. The party knows how demeaning and degrading it can be to people in and out of the party. The party knows that there's problematic things, but now we've got to wake them up to actually do something about it. I quoted [Martin Luther King Jr.] last night where he said, what we have to repent for is not the vitriolic words and violent actions of the bad people, but the appalling silence and inaction of the good people."
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