U.S. Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., gave the longest speech in Senate history as part of his lengthy remarks denouncing the various policies of the Trump administration, with some analysts believing it makes him a contender for a 2028 presidential run.
Booker took to the Senate floor on Monday evening around 7 p.m. to begin a speech that went for a little over 25 hours. He said he had the “intention of disrupting the normal business of the United States Senate for as long as I am physically able.”
The senator’s speech ended on Tuesday evening, breaking the previous record for the longest Senate speech made by former Sen. Strom Thurmond’s 1957 unsuccessful filibuster against a civil rights bill, which had lasted 24 hours and 18 minutes.
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Booker argued that the U.S. is “in crisis” under President Donald Trump and criticized the Trump administration’s efforts to reduce the size of federal government agencies and spending.
“I rise tonight because I believe sincerely that our country is in crisis,” he said. “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.”
“These are not normal times in America,” he added. “And they should not be treated as such in the United States Senate.”
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., told Booker that “all of America is paying attention to what you’re saying.”
“The disastrous actions of this administration — in terms of how they’re helping only the billionaires and hurting average families — you have brought that forth with such clarity.”
Others were critical of Booker’s speech, believing that it lacked any substantive impact on the direction of business in the Senate, much less the federal government.
“This encapsulates both our media and the Democratic Party perfectly. Performance art of the cheesiest variety,” tweeted Fox News contributor Joe Concha.
“Booker will be heralded as some sort of resistance hero, but this changes absolutely nothing except for the fact that the party has never looked and acted so unhinged.”
Veteran GOP pollster Frank Lutz told NewsNation in an interview Tuesday evening that he believed the Booker speech “may have changed the course of political history.”
“He struck the kind of tone that grassroots Democrats are looking for. He gave them a reason to fight. He gave them a reason to stand up and say, ‘This is my country too,'” Lutz said.
“Of course, every Republican watching will say this is nonsense. But he is not speaking just to Republicans; he’s speaking to Americans, and what I saw over the last 25 hours absolutely blew me away.”
Lutz further contends that the record speech “puts Cory Booker as one of the leaders for the Democratic Party for 2028” and possibly even as a current leader in the Senate.
“And I’ll go even further. If you ask Democratic senators right now, [who] would they rather have lead them over the next three years, they would choose Cory Booker over Chuck Schumer,” he continued. “That’s how significant today was.”
