Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey spent TK hours on the Senate floor in a non filibuster speaking in opposition to Donald Trump and Elon Musk’s spending cuts.
Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., took the Senate floor on Monday at 7 p.m. ET and resolved to retain it “for as long as I am physically able.” He did so through the night and into the morning, reading out loud from letters and emails from the everyday Americans hurt by President Donald Trump’s arbitrary and painful spending cuts. Late Tuesday afternoon, Booker was still speaking, leaning on the podium at times, but determined to keep going.
It wasn’t technically a filibuster that Booker conducted. He wasn’t talking to delay a vote on any specific agenda item. Instead, Booker said, in giving his marathon speech, he was “disrupting the normal business of the United States Senate.” After watching his heroic 25-hour long effort, I say our country would be better off if promoting the values Booker lifted up was the normal business of the Senate.“These are not normal times in our nation,” Booker insisted at the start of his speech.
“These are not normal times in our nation,” Booker insisted at the start of his speech. His rhetoric may have been a response to the growing pressure from Democratic voters to see the officials they elected show real resistance to Trump. A recent NBC News poll found “almost two-thirds of Democrats, 65%, say they want congressional Democrats to stick to their positions even if that risks sacrificing bipartisan progress, and just 32% want them to make legislative compromises with Trump.” Democrats were at an all-time low in popularity in that survey; only 27% of registered voters reported having a positive view of the party.
