Sen. Cory Booker, visibly tired but still upright at a lectern on the Senate floor, was deep into the second day of a speech criticizing the Trump administration Tuesday, a show of physical and oratorical stamina that he hoped would spotlight what he called a “crisis” facing the United States under President Donald Trump.
Booker, D-N.J., began speaking at 7 p.m. Monday and was still going more than 22 hours later, laying into the Trump administration’s cuts to government services and its crackdown on immigrants.
“This is not right or left, it is right or wrong,” Booker said Tuesday afternoon, his voice still strong. “This is not a partisan moment, it is a moral moment. Where do you stand?”
The speech was part of an effort by Democrats to retake the initiative and more assertively oppose Trump. Booker divided his remarks into sections focused on an aspect of the administration’s policies, including on health care, education, immigration and national security.
By Tuesday afternoon, Booker appeared to be pressing to break a record set by Sen. Strom Thurmond, who in 1957 delivered a 24-hour-18-minute filibuster opposing a piece of civil rights legislation. Booker, who for weeks had contemplated giving a marathon floor speech, has long been bothered that Thurmond, a segregationist from South Carolina, held the record, according to Booker’s office. (The Senate’s log of longest speeches does not reach back to the founding of the nation, but Thurmond’s is the longest on record.)
By 4:20 p.m., Booker’s speech had passed Sen. Ted Cruz’s memorable harangue of President Barack Obama’s Affordable Care Act. Cruz’s speech, in 2013, lasted 21 hours and 19 minutes.
Booker’s speech was not a filibuster — a procedural tactic that has been used to block legislation on many issues — because it did not come during a debate over a specific bill or nominee. But it did delay a planned vote on a Democratic-led bill to undo Trump’s tariffs on Canada.
“I rise with the intention of disrupting the normal business of the United States Senate for as long as I am physically able,” Booker said near the start of his speech on Monday. “I rise tonight because I believe sincerely that our nation is in crisis.”
He assailed what he said were Trump’s plans to cut funding for Medicaid, among other programs. The White House has denied that it plans to cut Medicaid benefits, but the president and his allies have attacked Medicaid, Medicare and Social Security over what they claim is waste, fraud and abuse.
Going without bathroom breaks but taking occasional pauses for encouraging questions from his fellow Democrats, Booker read from a binder of notes and waved a small copy of the U.S. Constitution. Over the hours, Booker’s voice grew hoarse. But it continued to boom.
“My voice is adequate,” Booker said. “My efforts today are inadequate to stop what they’re trying to do. But we the people are powerful.”
Before his speech, Booker said on social media that he was heading to the Senate floor because Trump and Elon Musk, the billionaire who is one of the president’s top advisers, had shown what he called “a complete disregard for the rule of law, the Constitution and the needs of the American people.”
Since 1915, many of the 48 all-night sessions in the chamber — defined as those lasting past 4 a.m. — have gone well over 24 hours.
Booker would surpass Thurmond’s Senate record at 7:19 p.m.
Thurmond was sustained by orange juice and bits of beef and pumpernickel during his speech. It was not clear if Booker had eaten anything Tuesday, but two glasses of water rested on a desk in front of his lectern.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
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