Sen. Cory Booker's marathon speech against President Trump's economic and social policies set a new record Tuesday night, as Booker, a Democrat, held the floor and spoke for more than 25 hours.
Loud applause filled the chamber as Booker surpassed the record set by Sen. Strom Thurmond in 1957. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer marked the moment by interrupting Booker with a question: "Do you know you have just broken the record?"
"I know now," Booker said after a lengthy ovation. But he wasn't done: "I want to not quite wrap this up yet."
So Booker kept talking, discussing what he repeatedly called "a moral moment" for America. He urged his Republican and Democratic colleagues to protect what Booker said are successful investments and agencies doing vital social and scientific work for the public — but which are targeted for deep cuts by the Trump administration.
"I want to go a little bit past this," Booker said as he resumed his remarks, sparking laughter as he added, "and then I'm going to deal with some of the biological urgencies I'm feeling."
Booker's speech, measured at a few minutes over 25 hours, eclipsed Thurmond's stand against the Civil Rights Act of 1957 that lasted 24 hours, 18 minutes, according to the Senate Historical Office. In this century, it also surpassed Sen. Ted Cruz's speech against Obamacare in 2013, which lasted 21 hours, 19 minutes.
During his remarks, the New Jersey Democrat read aloud from messages sent by Americans, stressing the pain they expressed over economic challenges — and their fears that Medicaid and other key programs will face debilitating budget cuts.
Booker called for Republicans who don't agree with Trump's economic plans to resist them, citing positions by conservative groups such as the Cato Institute and the Manhattan Institute. He spoke of reading from the Federalist Papers, urging his Senate colleagues to fulfill their role in the system of checks and balances and provide oversight over executive power.
"This is going to define the character of our country for years and years to come," he said.
Booker also spoke about two figures who were on opposite sides during the Civil Rights Era: Thurmond and the late Georgia Congressman John Lewis, who urged people to insist on justice by stirring up "good trouble."
"There's a room here in the Senate named after Strom Thurmond," Booker said moments before setting the new record.
"To hate him is wrong. And maybe my ego got too caught up — that if I stood here, maybe, maybe, just maybe I could break this record," he said of Thurmond.
"The man who tried to stop the rights upon which I stand. I'm not here, though, because of his speech," Booker said. "I'm here despite his speech. I'm here because as powerful as he was, the people were more powerful."
Booker then relayed a story Lewis told him when the two were in Georgia, about meeting a man who, years ago, had beaten him up when Lewis was an activist protesting segregation and racial discrimination.
"Decades later, he was a congressman," Booker said of Lewis. "That man brought his grandson with him to ask for forgiveness from John Lewis."
"What did you do?" Booker recalled asking.
"And a good Christian man, man of faith, simply said, 'Every one of us needs mercy. Every one of us needs redemption. I forgave him. I hugged him, we wept and I looked at the boy. This nation needs you too.' "
As Booker paused, Schumer asked him to yield for a question, confirming that he had just moved past Thurmond's mark.
Afterward, Booker said it had bothered him that Thurmond held a high-profile Senate record for nearly seven decades.
"I just found it strange that he had the record," Booker said. "And as a guy who grew up with legends of the Civil Rights Movement myself — my parents and their friends — it just seemed wrong to me, always seemed wrong."
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