Democrat Cory Booker set a record for the longest speech in the history of the US Senate – 25 hours and 5 minutes without interruption. He said he could not allow his colleagues to work in the same mode in ‘abnormal times for the country’. For more than a day from the podium, he criticised Donald Trump’s administration for spending cuts, immigration policy and attempts to dismantle the Department of Education.
New Jersey Democratic Senator Cory Booker began his speech on the evening of Monday, 31 March and promised to speak ‘as long as he physically could.’ Only after more than 25 hours did the senator finish his speech and leave the room. In doing so, he broke the record set 67 years ago by Senator Strom Thurmond of South Carolina, who spent 24 hours and 18 minutes pushing for passage of the Civil Rights Act in 1957.
Booker spoke all night and finished in the evening of 1 April. By that time, only on YouTube, the live broadcast of his speech was watched by more than 115 thousand users. For 25 hours, the senator criticised the administration of Donald Trump. He supported his theses with quotes from the late American politicians and excerpts from newspaper articles. Booker condemned spending cuts and mass layoffs of government employees, the current president’s immigration policy and the White House’s attempts to abolish the Department of Education. He accused fellow senators of failing to vote against Trump’s nominees for executive positions. Booker emphasised that his speech was not a provocation, but an attempt to ‘warn of a serious danger’.
The Guardian writes that by the end of the speech, Booker’s voice had gone a little hoarse and he ‘began to stammer a little, but he was still on his feet.’ The senator later told reporters that his muscles were cramping and ‘spasming from time to time.’ To prepare for the record-breaking speech, he stopped eating on 28 March and drinking on the eve of the speech.
Booker’s speech came amid pressure on Democrats, with voters accusing them of not doing enough to stand up to Trump.
