Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) has officially broken the record previously held by the late Sen. Strom Thurmond, by delivering the longest continuous floor speech in Senate history.
As of 7:19 p.m. ET on April 1, Booker had spoken for 24 hours and 19 minutes, a minute longer than Thurmond’s 1957 filibuster of the Civil Rights Act of 1957. He began his speech at 7 p.m. on March 31, vowing in a video posted to social media platform X, “I’m going to go for as long as I’m physically able to go.”
Rather than blocking any particular bill or measure, Booker’s speech was an explicit criticism of the Trump administration. Technically, the speech could have been ended by a vote of 60 senators, but no effort was made to do so.
Booker finally yielded the floor at 8:05 p.m., with his time on the floor clocking in at a total of 25 hours and 5 minutes.
As he crossed the finish line to break the record, Booker said that he was not only making the speech to surpass Thurmond’s filibuster: “I’m here despite his speech.”
After the record was broken, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) took to the floor to congratulate Booker’s achievement as the Senate chamber erupted into applause.
In the minutes leading up to breaking the record, Booker was visibly exhausted, tilting left and right on his feet after 24 hours of standing.
Near the end of the speech, Booker focused his attention on his relationship with the late Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.), the Civil Rights leader who also served as a mentor figure to Booker following his election to the Senate.
Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), briefly taking over from Booker, who remained standing, noted the contrast between Thurmond’s speech and Booker’s.
“What you have done here today couldn’t be more different than what occurred on this floor in 1957,” Murphy said, praising Booker.
Multiple Democratic members of the House sat on the Senate floor listening in.
The address has primarily served as an extended critique of the first 70 days of President Donald Trump’s second term, touching on multiple issues from Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) cuts to Trump’s plan to dismantle the Department of Education.
Booker made a point to criticize the administration’s apparent mistake in sending a Salvadoran illegal immigrant to a prison in his home country where gang members, such as those from Venezuela’s Tren de Aragua, are being held.
There is no time limit as to how long Senators can speak on the Senate floor.
Booker was joined by his Democrat colleagues as they spoke in intervals during his remarks. They included Schumer and Sens. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Angela Alsobrooks (D-Md.), and Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.).
Ahead of the speech, Booker said he is “not gonna stop speaking” nor stop standing.
At the beginning of his speech, Booker said Trump “has inflicted so much harm on Americans’ safety, financial stability, the core foundations of our democracy, and even our aspirations as a people for, from our highest offices, a sense of common decency.”
“The threats to the American people and American democracy are grave and urgent, and we all must do more to stand against them,” he said.
The White House criticized Booker’s speech.
“Cory Booker is looking for another ‘I am Spartacus’ moment, but that didn’t work for his failed presidential campaign, and it didn’t work to block President Trump’s Supreme Court nominee, Brett Kavanaugh,” White House principal deputy press secretary Harrison Fields told The Epoch Times in a statement.
Fields was referring to Booker releasing private records surrounding Brett Kavanaugh when the judge was under consideration for a Supreme Court seat by the Senate in 2018. Such action was a violation of Senate Judiciary Committee rules.
The Spartacus reference comes from the 1960 film “Spartacus” about a slave who led an unsuccessful revolt against the Roman Empire.
