Senator Cory Booker (D-NJ) talks about the press at the American Capitol in Washington on Wednesday. Booker spoke for more than 25 hours against the “unconstitutional” actions of President Trump.
Roberto Schmidt / AFP via Getty Images
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Roberto Schmidt / AFP via Getty Images
On Monday evening, Senator Cory Booker was held on the Senate soil and started a speech criticizing the Trump administration.
New Jersey’s 55 -year -old Democrat kept speak and speak – all night and in the next day – for 25 hours and 5 minutes.
He didn’t sit down. He did not eat. He did not use the toilet.
“The body is tired in many places, from my back to my feet and my legs, I just feel it,” said Booker Well -considered Host Juana Summers. “But my soul soar and I feel very blessed by all the experience.”
His effort, which involved dozens of Senate Democratic colleagues asking questions to relieve his speaking burden, has set a record for the longest speech ever recorded in the room. He exceeded the previous record set in 1957 by the segregationist Sen. Strom Thurmondbogged down for 24 hours and 18 minutes oppose the civil rights law.
Booker started his speech at 7 p.m. Monday and has committed to using his time to disrupt “the normal affairs of the American Senate as long as I am physically capable”.
“In just 71 days, the president inflicted damage after prejudice to the security of the Americans, the 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 country. And they should not be treated as such in the American Senate.”
Booker said that his passionate anti-Trump speech occurs at a time when many voters question party leadership.
“I think we couldn’t talk about the party and start talking about people,” he told NPR. “I really think we have to start having a more daring vision of who we are as a country, not only against whom we are against the other part.”
When asked for comments on Booker’s speech before defining the record, a White House spokesperson published a statement to several media:
“Cory Booker is looking for another moment” I am Spartacus “, but that did not work for his failed presidential campaign, and that did not work to block the candidate of the Supreme Court of President Trump, Brett Kavanaugh. When will he realize that he is not Spartacus-Is it a parody?” The spokesman, Harrison Fields, said in a statement.
This interview was slightly modified for length and clarity.
The New Jersey Democrat criticized the Trump administration policies on immigration, education and the economy for more than 25 hours in a row.
Senate television / via AP
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Senate television / via AP
Strengths of the interview
Juana Summers: Democrats and those who oppose President Trump, they cried for your party to do anything to really do anything to resist the president. And following ardent public rhetoric like yours in the Senate, how do you exploit this momentum and a real substantial action?
Cory Booker: Well, I really wanted as much as possible, and I know that is what it is. But I tried as much as possible to supervise my remarks, not on the left or right, but on the right or bad, that it was a moral moment because a lot of politicians – and I know it by speaking to my republican colleagues – are not widely agreed on each side. And, you know, many things (Trump is) doing. And the challenges for the Americans, whose voices I tried to bring in my speech and read dozens of real Americans from all over the country, in particular New Jersey, but on both sides of the political aisle, really saying that these policies are morally wrong and that they will injure people. And so, I hope it may be one of the many ignition points that lead people to galvanize and come together and prevent it from doing many of these things, as we did in 2017, when Americans from all horizons have stopped it, as well as three Republican senators to withdraw health care for millions of people.
Summers: I mean some of the problems you have raised. You have highlighted a number of problems, including Medicaid, Medicare and Social Security from any Cups of the Trump administration. Democrats and those who want to protect these programs have a plan to do so?
Booker: Well, we are experiencing reality right now. They will use a budgetary process that does not require any democratic voting. And as they are in the majority, this process means that we do not have votes as a democrats alone to stop them. But you hear the Republicans, a guy like (the member of the Thomas Congress) Massie in the House, who said very binly, I will not vote for that because it creates billions of dollars of new budgetary obligations, simply widens the deficit. And I think you attract morale and character and, frankly, the principles on the other side they use. And they say and that is why during the speech, I brought so many republican thoughts, republican voices, republican governors. And that cannot be a democratic victory that we are looking for. The only way to win now is to wake up and get involved with people on both sides of the political aisle. And the real reasons to stop this because it is not logical to create billions of dollars in additional bonds for our grandchildren. This has no sense to withdraw money from programs like Medicaid, all to give tax reductions that go disproportionately among the richest of us. It is, I think, most of the principles of people who violate.
Summers: You have mentioned that Democrats cannot go to the rider alone. I don’t have to tell you that the Republicans have majority control of the Chamber and the Senate. What did you hear your republican colleagues following speech?
Booker: I had a lot of hugs from my republican colleagues. I think people could find it surprising, but many people just appreciated, I think, the fact that it was the file of Strom Thurmond, disturbed my republican colleagues as well as democratic colleagues. And they were happy to see me crushed this disc, even if they did not agree with all the points I made during my remarks. Others have told me, you know, there are a lot of things with which I said they can agree, even if there are things with which they disagreed. So, I had experience in this Senate to make big bills by finding common ground. I think it’s a time when the party knows how much Donald Trump is above. The party knows how degrading and degrading it can be for people in and out of the party. The party knows that there are problematic things, but now we have to wake them up to do something. I quoted (Martin Luther King Jr.) last night, where he said, what we have to repent is not the vitrioral words and the violent actions of bad people, but the terrible silence and the inaction of good people. “”
