Democratic US Senator Cory Booker has accused President Donald Trump of “recklessly” challenging America’s democratic institutions in a marathon speech that broke a nearly seven-decade record.
The 55-year-old New Jersey lawmaker began his speech at 7pm on Monday and went on for more than 24 hours until shortly after 8pm on Tuesday (local time).
He criticised the crusade by the Republican President and his billionaire top adviser Elon Musk to slash large swaths of the US federal government.
“These are not normal times in our nation,” Booker, who was elected to the Senate in 2013, said at the start of his speech.
“They should not be treated as such in the United States Senate. The threats to the American people and American democracy are grave and urgent, and we all must do more to stand against them.”
“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 and even our aspirations as a people for — from our highest offices — a sense of common decency.
Booker, who is black, broke the record for the longest continuous speech previously held by segregationist Senator Strom Thurmond of South Carolina.
In the summer of 1957, Thurmond launched a filibuster against civil rights legislation that lasted 24 hours and 18 minutes. In the end, Thurmond failed in his mission to block a bill that expanded federal protections of voting rights for black people.
Booker, whose speech was not a filibuster – a tactic to delay or kill action on specific legislation – passed Thurmond’s record and kept going.
Because his speech was not aimed at a specific piece of legislation, was not technically considered a filibuster, though it did halt other Senate action.
Booker’s only breaks were when a stream of fellow Democrats, one-by-one, came to the floor to ask him a question, allowing him to keep control of his speaking time.
He repeatedly referred to activists getting into “good trouble” by speaking out against Trump’s actions, using a term often employed by the late Democratic Representative John Lewis, a civil rights leader.
In his first weeks in office, Trump has moved to outright shutter government arms including the Department of Education and withhold congressionally approved spending. His administration has also questioned the authority of the federal courts to constrain its policies.
Booker acknowledged Democratic voter anger about 24 hours into his speech.
“I was challenged by my own constituents to do something different, challenged by my own constituents to do something, challenged by my own constituents to take risks,” he said.
A White House spokesman dismissed Booker’s criticism.
“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,” deputy White House press secretary Harrison Fields said.
Booker had made a run for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2020, the year that Trump ultimately lost his bid for re-election to Joe Biden.
Musk, the world’s richest person, heads the Trump administration’s Department of Government Efficiency, which is intent on slashing federal spending.
Musk’s targets – and thus Trump’s – include eliminating many US foreign aid programs and cutting workers at federal departments that provide public health services, healthcare to veterans and the Social Security Administration, which oversees federal retirement programs.
“The Trump-Vance administration continues to plunge us into chaos,” Booker said.
“Trump’s trade war on our allies will only increase costs and fears for American families.”
-AAP
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