His was a primal scream of resistance: "We all must do
more to stand against them."
“Would the senator yield for a question?” asked Democratic leader Chuck Schumer.
Senator Cory Booker, who on a long day’s journey into night had
turned himself into the fighter that many Democrats were yearning for,
replied with a wry smile: “Chuck Schumer, it’s the only time in my life I
can tell you no.”
But Schumer wasn’t taking no for an answer. “I just wanted to tell
you, a question, do you know you have just broken the record? Do you
know how proud this caucus is of you? Do you know how proud America is
of you?”
New Jersey’s first Black senator had just shattered the record for the longest speech
in Senate history, delivered by South Carolina’s Strom Thurmond, an
arch segregationist who filibustered for 24 hours and 18 minutes against
the Civil Rights Act of 1957.
In the normally sombre Senate chamber, around 40 Democrats rose to
their feet in effusive applause. A few hundred people in the public
gallery, where the busts of 20 former vice-presidents gazed down from
marble plinths, erupted in clapping and cheering and whooping. The
senator took a tissue and mopped perspiration from his forehead.
Since Booker’s obstruction did not occur during voting on any bill it
was not technically a filibuster. But it marked the first time during
Donald Trump’s second term that Democrats have deliberately clogged up
Senate business.
Indeed, after 72 days in which Democrats have appeared lame and
leaderless, Booker stood up and did something. He said his constituents
had challenged him to think differently and take risks and so he did. In
an attention economy so often dominated by the forces of Maga, his
all-nighter offered a ray of hope in the darkness.
Some Democrats have desperately tried to be authentic with
cringeworthy TikTok videos such as a “Choose Your Fighter” parody.
Booker, by contrast, went old school: one man standing and talking for
hour after hour on the Senate floor in a display of endurance
reminiscent of a famous scene in the 1939 film Mr Smith Goes to
Washington starring Jimmy Stewart.
It had all begun at 7pm on Monday when, wearing a US flag pin on a
dark suit, white shirt and black tie as if dressed for the funeral of
the republic, Booker vowed: “I rise tonight with the intention of
getting in some good trouble. I rise with the intention of disrupting
the normal business of the United States Senate for as long as I am
physically able.
“I rise tonight because I believe sincerely that our country is in
crisis … These are not normal times in America and they should not be
treated as such in the United States Senate. The threats to the American
people and American democracy are grave and urgent, and we all must do
more to stand against them.”
What followed was a tour de force of physical stamina. The
55-year-old, who played tight end for Stanford University’s American
football team, asked a Senate page to take away his chair so he was not
tempted to sit down, which is barred by the Senate rules. The chair
could be seen pushed back against a wall.
Above Booker the words “Novus Ordo Seclorum” – a Latin phrase meaning
“a new order of the ages” or “a new order of the centuries” – were
inscribed in the Senate chamber above a relief depicting a bare chested
hero wrestling a snake.
Booker leaned on his desk and sipped from a glass of water. He
shifted from foot to foot or paced to keep the blood circulating in his
legs. He wiped away sweat with a white handkerchief. He plucked a tissue
from a blue-grey tissue box, blew his nose and dropped it into a bin.
He persisted.
Alexandra De Luca, vice president of communications at the liberal
group American Bridge, tweeted: “I worked for Cory Booker on the
campaign trail and (and I say this with love) that man drinks enough
caffeine on a normal day to stay up 72 hours. This could go a while.”
Booker may also be a great advert for veganism. He could be jocular,
bantering with old friends in the Senate about sport and state
rivalries. He could be emotional, his voice cracking and his eyes on the
verge of tears, especially when a letter from the family of a person
with Parkinson’s disease reminded him of his late father.
He could also be angry, channeling the fury of those who feel their
beloved country slipping away. Yet to the end his mind was clear and his
voice was strong. This was also a masterclass in political rhetoric,
which Schumer rightly praised for its “crystalline brilliance”.
There were recurring themes: Trump’s economic chaos and rising prices; billionaires exerting ever greater influence; Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, slashing entire government programmes without consent from Congress and inflicting pain on children, military veterans and other vulnerable groups.
Booker read dozens and dozens of letters from what he called
“terrified people” with “heartbreaking” stories. As the day wore on, he
quoted from a fired USAid employee who told a devastating story of
broken dreams and warned: “The beacon of our democracy grows dim across
the globe.”
The senator also warned of tyranny: Trump disappearing people from
the streets without due process; bullying the media and trying to create
press corps like Vladimir Putin or Recep Tayyip Erdoğan; seizing more
executive power and putting democracy itself in grave peril.
A few times he inverted former president John F Kennedy’s famous
phrase to warn that today it’s no longer “ask not what your country can
do for you. It’s what you can do for Donald Trump.”
He acknowledged that the public want Democrats to do more. But he
insisted that can only go so far and, as during the civil rights
movement, the American people must rise up. He frequently referred to a
“moral moment” and invoked the late congressman John Lewis, famed for
causing “good trouble”.
“This is not who we are or how we do things in America,” Booker said.
“How much more can we endure before we, as a collective voice, say
enough is enough? Enough is enough. You’re not going to get away with
this.”
The Senate chamber contains 100 wooden desks and brown leather chairs
on a tiered semicircular platform. For most of the marathon nearly all
the seats were empty and only a handful of reporters were in the press
gallery.
But Democrat Chris Murphy accompanied Booker throughout his speech.
“We’ve passed the 15-hour mark,” Booker observed. “I want to thank
Senator Murphy because he’s been here at my side the entire time.”
Other Democrats took turns to show up in solidarity, asking if Booker
would accept a question. He agreed, reading from a note to ensure he
got the wording right: “I yield for a question while retaining the
floor.”
Occasionally he would quip: “I have the floor. So much power, it’s going to my head!”
Just after 10.30am Schumer, the minority leader, told Booker: “Your
strength, your fortitude, your clarity has just been nothing short of
amazing and all of America is paying attention to what you’re saying.
All of America needs to know there’s so many problems, the disastrous
actions of this administration.”
They discussed Medicaid cuts before Booker responded: “You heaped so
many kind things on me. But never before in the history of America has a
man from Brooklyn said so many complimentary things about a man in
Newark.”
Angela Alsobrooks, the first Black senator from Maryland, entered the
chamber, caught Booker’s eye and raised a clenched fist in a shared act
of resistance.
As Booker approached the 24-hour mark, most Senate Democrats took
their seats and Democrats from the House of Representatives, including
minority leader Hakeem Jeffries, sat or stood in the chamber. The public
and press galleries swelled.
Booker once again channelled Lewis, the civil rights hero. “I don’t
know what John Lewis would say, but John Lewis would do something. He
would say something. What we will have to repent for is not the words
and violent actions for bad people, but the appalling silence and
inaction of good people. This is our moral moment.”
As Booker closed in on Thurmond’s record, Murphy noted that this
speech was very different. “Today you are standing not in the way of
progress but of retreat,” he told his friend.
Booker commented: “I could break this record of the man who tried to
stop the rights upon which I stand. I’m not here, though, because of his
speech; I’m here despite his speech. I’m here because as powerful as he
was, the people were more powerful.”
Even when the record was beaten he carried on. “I want to go a little
bit past this and then I’m going to deal with some of the biological
urgencies I’m feeling,” he said.
Finally, after 25 hours and four minutes, Booker declared: “This is a
moral moment. It’s not left or right. It’s right or wrong. Madam
President, I yield the floor.”
Again the chamber erupted in cheers and Democrats mobbed their new
unofficial leader. No one who was there will ever forget it. Booker had
delivered a vivid portrait of a great nation breaking promises to its
people, betraying overseas allies and sliding off a cliff towards
authoritarianism. He had also made a persuasive case that an inability
to do everything should not undermine an attempt to do something.
His was a primal scream of resistance.
