EDIT: Livestream here.
As of 11:50am PST he’s still going, so getting close to 19 hours now.
Summary:
Sen. Cory Booker is holding the Senate floor into Tuesday afternoon, as the New Jersey Democrat continues his marathon speech protesting actions taken by President Donald Trump’s administration.
The Democratic senator vowed Monday evening that he would keep going as long as he was “physically able,” continuing his remarks through the night. As of noon Tuesday, he had spoken for more than 17 hours, having begun at 7 p.m. ET Monday.
Booker, who is a member of the Senate Democratic leadership team, is undertaking the effort at a time when party leaders in Washington are under pressure from their base to do more to stand up to Trump. He has castigated Trump’s efforts with Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency to overhaul the federal government, while speaking on a number of topics, including Social Security, Medicaid and immigration.
“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 at the outset of his remarks. “I rise tonight because I believe sincerely that our country is in crisis.”
“In just 71 days, the president of the United States has inflicted so much harm on Americans’ safety; financial stability; the core foundations of our democracy,” Booker said. “These are not normal times in America. And they should not be treated as such in the United States Senate.”
Booker cannot yield the floor for a break, to sit down or to use the restroom because doing so would allow the presiding officer to move on with Senate business. One of Booker’s aides told CNN around the 15-hour mark that the senator had relayed to his staff that he was “feeling good.”
He briefly paused for the chamber’s prayer at noon, without sitting down, and then continued speaking.
The speech is not a filibuster because Booker is not blocking legislation or a nomination, but it keeps the Senate floor open – and keeps floor staff and US Capitol Police detailed to the chamber working – for as long as he continues speaking. Lawmakers had concluded voting on Monday before he began his remarks.
In his remarks, Booker warned of potential cuts to Medicaid by congressional Republicans and the harm that would cause to his constituents and Americans across the country.
He briefly paused for the chamber’s prayer at noon
Wait what. I know separation of church and state is barely real in the USA, but the chamber actually does a prayer??
yes. it’s justified as being constitutional by that participation is not compulsory
Dark patterns has entered the chat
Jesus. The US continues to find ways to surprise me
News to me, too. Insane.
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And this is why Cory is one of my fav senators, and I’m not in Jersey. EDIT: I regret saying this, he supports Israel.
I hope he breaks the record that Thormud made when protesting the Civil Rights Act of 1957. It would look kinda cool that it was broken to help stop what Thormud wanted in the future.
EDIT: He has https://apnews.com/article/cory-booker-new-jersey-senator-speech-ab573bb7c3c76fa107cacac7136d3823
The actual Eugene Debs is rolling in his grave.
Probably, hes the least bad politician in America.
He did!
Ayy, that’s my senator! I’ve been calling him and Andy Kim telling them we need them to fight back. Well, here we go. Proud of my great state and while maybe I don’t always see eye to eye with my politicians, I think NJ has been getting better.
The record was broken and he’s still going!
He is more coherent after 24 hours standing and speaking than Trump is on his best days.
Has he been peeing into a bottle or did he get a catheter?
He told NPR afterwards that he fasted for a while before trying this; and even skipped out on water for a bit: https://www.npr.org/2025/04/01/nx-s1-5347318/cory-booker-senate-speech
(edit) I misspoke, NPR reported that “he told reporters…”
Depends.
There’s a loophole where his coworkers can ask him a really long question and as long as he’s back by the time they’re done, it’s all good.
Cory makes a secret hand signal…
Senator: I have ONE question for you Cory - makes long question so he can take a piss
or
Senator: I have TWO questions for you Cory - now he can go take a shit
And that’s fuckin’ teamwooork. -tenacious D
I don’t understand
It’s a shitty form of government literally concocted by slave masters.
What do you not understand?
Do you not understand what the words mean? Do you not understand the purpose? Do you not understand the context? I don’t understand what you don’t understand.
If you’re going to rail on about how people need to do more to educate others instead of telling you to do some basic reading then you can at the very least put some effort into your inquiry.
What the hell is he doing. A democrat man talks for a long time 👍
I think you need to watch a video where someone breaks down how to ask a question.
Maybe or maybe there’s subtext
Based on your other responses I assume that the subtext here is that this didn’t actually achieve anything other than allowing for a democrat to hold the floor and talk for over a day? It’s performative and all it achieves is online discourse vs. what you’d consider to be action? Did I get that right? Maybe I’m wrong, but I’m not a mind reader and you haven’t been very direct, so that’s my interpretation.
How about you just say what you mean? Hiding behind these sorts of bad faith engagements is childish snowflake behaviour.
Actually, I really appreciate you putting that together. Yes, it captures a big part of what I’ve been trying to say.
Maybe it is bad faith, but I also think that speaking directly, especially online, is genuinely hard. Still, one of my biggest frustrations is how difficult it is to spread and sustain important ideas and perspectives.
What really gets me is seeing people pour so much energy into a single protest driving for hours, standing in the rain, even getting arrested but then showing almost no interest in doing something like consistently sharing content online, which is easier and arguably more effective in the long run. That disconnect baffles me. Like posting and commenting on an issue for 24 hrs isn’t enough
And on top of that, there’s a real failure to support strong figureheads or voices who are actually good at communicating the message. These people burn out or get drowned out because there’s no consistent effort to lift them up. It’s like the momentum gets lost the moment the event ends, and without that sustained effort, we just end up watching things fall apart from the sidelines.
Yeah I was definitely a bit snarky but these days, at least from me, you get the effort you give :) no hard feelings, honestly. Before going further, I just want to mention that I am outside of the US so this is more of an outside view - although the problem isn’t isolated to the US.
I appreciate you expanding your point, and I do agree with the general premise of your thoughts, however I believe there is a time and a place. I don’t believe it was really constructive in the context of this article. This action by Booker was probably the most action we’ve seen out of the Democrats in the US. It came across as letting perfection become the enemy of good.
Those who are left leaning within the US absolutely need to do better and be more aggressive in their messaging, but they’re up against a behemoth. Democrats (overall) and Republicans both, have, and are, acting against the best interest of their citizens. This isn’t meant to be a both sides argument, because they’re on different levels, but the rightward shift does not seem like an accident.
The road ahead is a tough one. Progressives obviously can’t rely on traditional media to cover their fight, and complaining about not getting coverage doesn’t really provide anything new. It is known that progressives are shut out by both parties within the US in favour of the status quo, moreso by the right wingers but also very much by the left wingers (I’d say liberals, but for simplicity’s sake used left wing). Nobody wants to give up their comfort despite the system which is providing them that comfort slowly yanking it out, or not resisting those who are, from under them.
We’re in a technological world but those who “control” that world are part of the problem. Social media kind of acts as a pressure release valve for all the anger, which though it can be helpful in spreading a message, or preventing anarchy, seems to prevent meaningful action as well. It’s a tough spot to be in.
Rather than spreading the message online to build up support in numbers that can meaningfully mobilize, it seems that progressives are in a spot where they need those mobilization numbers before even spreading the message lest they want to be shut out by liberals and conservatives alike. I do believe that the numbers are there, but apathy and fear are total bitches and I can understand why people have felt their efforts would be worthless.
At this point I’m just going off on a tangent so I’ll leave it here for now. My final point is this: what Booker did, although not immediately effective in preventing this downfall, was at the least extremely admirable, impressive in terms of will, and hopefully something that starts to get the wheels turning a little bit faster. It’s not an action to be looked at in isolation. Your explained point is correct in that there needs to be more than just celebration of this event, but let’s not put those who DO celebrate it down.
Then Google it and catch up. Booker is kicking ass and you want a spoon-feed? Not from me.
Holy shit you people never understand this do you…
Why does every grandmother know every right wing issue while all of you smuggly keep saying ‘Google it’ while you lose every battle you barely attempt to be mad about
Do your work if you’re so committed to these causes. But the effort in yourselves or stop crying all over the Internet how everyone are fascists and Nazis now.
Make fucking content
Cut the shit and wake up
Well you’ve succeeded at being mad about it. Next maybe instead of spending 7 seconds complaining you don’t understand, spend 11 seconds and know the answer.
If you were a right wing grandmother you would at least have watched enough TV to know something without complaining you had to watch the full segment between commercals. Instead you play the whiny and resentful twit. Sorry I didn’t make a fucking TIKTOK of this issue to fit your goldfish attention span. Channel that rage into voting, calling, and action instead of being a know nothing whiny waste of oxygen. It’s not the job of the world to spoon feed you facts and an opinion.
“I don’t understand”. WELL JESUS FUCKING NUGGET. PUT IN SOME EFFORT YA DINGUS!
Edit: In the time since this comment was made, I have called both my senators and emailed my congressional rep. What have you done?
Wow great job. You win whatever the you think you win here and still have a trump presidency and every other loss socially and politically and still don’t get why
If it gets you and anyone else off their lazy asses it’s a win. And if you “don’t get why”, thanks for your tax money because I’m the one getting breaks on your dime. Hopefully that pisses you off. If it doesn’t, well, my next house will have a pool and you’ll rent. Get mad and DO something!
Just getting off a lazy ass isn’t enough. That’s not a win. Having someone drive two towns over just to stand in the rain and get their heads kicked in by police because they were misinformed how effective a protest would be is not winning. Telling each other we shouldn’t engage because it’s like rolling with pigs is self neutering.
My point is stop thinking that posting an article or making a comment is doing fuck all. Create good fucking content
Yeah you coulda just kept this one to yourself chief
Same goes.
A real patriot o7
So congress did nothing except talk for 25 hours straight for absolutely no reason just like last week
Hero shit
He briefly paused for the chamber’s prayer at noon, without sitting down, and then continued speaking.
Can an American explain this to me? This is wild. Government should be 100% secular.
Government should be 100% secular.
Wouldn’t that be nice.
The explanation is that it isn’t.
Should be. But isn’t.
American Values TM©®
I feel like we’ve run this meme further than is useful; there’s absolutely criticisms to be had about how the separation of church in state operates within American government but it’s hardly the only “developed” (hate that word but you know what I mean) country to have a government that takes for granted Christianity as default; Britain, after all, has a state church – for (pun slightly intended) Christ’s sake – that definitely bleeds into the way its government thinks about what a religion is and how much “religion” gets support.
I’m not saying I wouldn’t prefer (and hope we move towards) a more strict and complete separation but let’s not pretend America is astonishingly unique…
My comment was more about the hypocrisy of the term “American values”. The people who most loudly espouse “American Values” rarely do more than pay lip service to ideals they think are good in a vacuum, but never actually support in practice when those values are tested even a little bit (democracy, equality, free speech, the right to protest, etc etc).
That may not be a uniquely American trait, either, but it is still annoyingly present enough it warrants complaining about.
The prayer is to capitalism
- Supply Side Jesus who died on the candlestick symbol for your profits.
I don’t think that’s a bad thing. I see it like adding a wheelchair ramp so handicapped congress people can enter the building on their own.
If someone wasn’t able to become a congress person because it isn’t “accessible” to their religion, that would be pretty bad for democracy (although tbh I wouldn’t mind banning religious people from positions of power in general)
Churches enjoy tax exemptions. Wheelchair users do not. I firmly believe that religion should be completely separate from government.
I think it’s ok if someone who is religious is in government, provided they do their job. Stopping for prayer isn’t doing their job.
Consider a devout Muslim person elected to congress who is not able to pray because they don’t get time throughout the day to do it. As a result, they step down because their faith is important to them.
The “usual suspects” don’t want Muslims in congress, so they claim that prayer breaks are unconstitutional, effectively blocking Muslims from any position in Congress, and weakening our democracy further.
It’s another thing entirely if the “prayer breaks” were something they tried to force onto the rest of the country. That’d be the government trying to use its power to spread a particular religion, which is unconstitutional. But prayer breaks inside Congress are just an accessibility thing.
Government should be 100% secular.
Too bad the state is 0% secular.
o7
RESPECT
RESPECT
On a side note (nothing to do with Cory Booker):
the chamber’s prayer at noon
I am once again flabbergasted by the separation of church & state in the US of A.
I mean, that’s fine. They’re allowed to pray. Everyone is. That’s the point of freedom of religion. Now if it was mandatory Christian prayer time for everyone that would be an issue, as separation of church and state means no laws enforcing one specific religion.
Allowing people to pray at noon allows Muslims to have their noon prayer, and anyone else can pray then as well so it makes sense why noon.
Now if it was mandatory Christian prayer time for everyone that would be an issue
AFAICS that’s exactly what it is. May not be mandatory but the phrasing “the chamber’s prayer” suggests it’s for everyone, and it’s happening in the chamber (i.e. the senate).
I couldn’t find any mention of the noon prayer, but the morning prayer is mentioned in Wikipedia: every Senate session is opened by the Senate Chaplain who has been, surprise surprise, some sort of Protestant since 1789.
You know what, seems you might be right I assumed they had him open and then had quiet prayer time for a few minutes which at least lets others pray but it might just be a short sermon from the chaplain. While they’ve had non-Christian ones as guests… yeah.
He better get a god damned round of applause from …well everyone.
Never gonna cheer for genocide.
He’ll get sanctioned for arbitrary bullshit by republicans and given a stern talking to about unity and bipartisanship from schumer.
Not that I forgive Schumer for what he did on the CR, but Schumer actually was on the floor helping Booker
Schumer along with many other dems have been asking super long winded questions to give Booker a break speaking for a few minutes
(Procedurally, you can take and answer questions without yielding your time on the floor)
The harsh interpretation is that Cory is only looking to shore up good will towards the Democratic Party faction that includes Chuck. Hence this isn’t actually a filibuster that might stop something from passing.
The more charitable view is that Congressman Booker is reaponding to criticism by demonstrating a level of action not seen outside an Independent senator and a handful of other house members.
I ain’t rooting against his effort one bit in the face of the GOP, even under the most cynical interpretations of recouperation.
