In this image provided by Senate Television, Sen, Cory Booker, D-N.J. speaks on the Senate floor, Tuesday morning, April 1, 2025. (Senate Television via AP)
Democratic Sen. Cory Booker ended his record-setting speech the same way he began it, more than 25 hours earlier: by invoking the words of his mentor, the late congressman and civil rights icon John Lewis.
“He endured beatings savagely on the Edmund Pettus Bridge, at lunch counters, on freedom rides. He said he had to do something. He would not normalize a moment like this,” Booker said of Lewis’ work as a young activist during the Civil Rights movement. “He would not just go along with business as usual.”
A break from “business as usual” was what Booker had in mind as he performed a feat of political endurance, holding the Senate floor for 25 hours and 5 minutes while delivering a wide-ranging critique of Trump and his policies.
In doing so, Booker broke the record for longest Senate floor speech, a mark that had belonged for decades to Strom Thurmond, the avowed segregationist from South Carolina who filibustered the Civil Rights Act of 1957.
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