Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) made Senate history Tuesday evening after speaking for more than 24 hours on the chamber’s floor, eclipsing the previous record for the longest Senate speech held by the late Strom Thurmond.
At 7:19 p.m., Booker officially set the new record with a marathon speech of 24 hours and 19 minutes that first began Monday at 7 p.m. in a symbolic protest of President Donald Trump’s second term.
“I don’t have that much gas in the tank,” Booker said as he approached the 22-hour mark.
Staying true to his initial mission to hold control of the floor and halt all other legislative business for as long as he was “physically able” to do so, Booker took only brief breaks over the past 24 hours to allow Democratic colleagues to speak in his place.
The New Jersey Democrat was not protesting any single proposed bill and was therefore not a filibuster, despite temporarily preventing the Republican majority from voting on other measures and presidential nominees.
Rather, Booker stated he was motivated by a “complete disregard for the rule of law, the Constitution, and the needs of the American people” by Trump and Elon Musk, the world’s richest man and close Trump confidant who manages the administration’s spending cuts and layoffs through the so-called Department of Government Efficiency.
This is a developing story.
