Cory Booker interrupts the record for the longest speech in the Senate while asking for resistance to Trump
IIt was right that Cory Booker was telling a story about the deceased leader of civil rights John Lewis while entering the 19th minute and 24th time of a historical speech in the Senate on Tuesday evening.
At that moment, the first black senator for New Jersey beat a record for the longest speech ever made at Congress, one who was set 67 years ago by the Democratic Segregationist Strom Thurmond, who spoke for a day and one night in opposition to the civil rights law.
He exceeded the emotion, Booker looked up at the ceiling and touched his heart while his democratic companions in the room applauded his efforts.
“Okay, I want to overcome this and then I intend to face some of the biological emergencies I feel,” he said.
Booker, a 55 -year -old Avuncular who ran for the president in 2020, invoked the leaders of civil rights during his speech on the marathon in protest against the policies of Donald Trump, asking for greater resistance to his second -grade second mandate.
“I don’t know what John Lewis would say right now … but John Lewis would have said something, he would do something. He wouldn’t have treated this moral moment as if it were normal,” Booker said.
Booker started his speech in the Senate’s room at 19:00 the night before, promising to speak “all the time when I am physically able”.
In what described as “American moral moment”, Booker criticized the Trump administration for his “complete contempt for the rule of law, the constitution and needs of the American people”.
“I get up tonight because I sincerely believe that our country is in crisis,” he said. “I believe that not in a partisan sense, because so many people who have reached my office in pain, in fear, having life inverted – so many of them identify themselves as republicans.”
Booker was still there on Tuesday morning, looking tired and wired but still engaged in his black suit and tie, walking around the podium with glasses in his hand.
“I have fuel in the tank man,” he insisted at 10, about 15 hours.
In his broad but targeted speech, the senator painted a picture of a corrupt, venal and chaotic administration. Taking facts and figures by the binders prepared by his staff, separated from the matter, stopped in the Strait Councilor of Trump and in the billionaire of Elon Musk and “Oligarchy” technology that surrounded Trump, feeling that he has looked -like cuts to social security and medicoid that would have affected the scariest in the country.
“This is the house of the people. It is the article of the Constitution and is under assault!” He said at the 14th now, with a raised voice, explaining what motivated him to undertake his extraordinary action.
“Our expenditure powers, our budget powers, the power to establish agencies such as the Department of Public Education and Usaid, is under assault by a president who does not respect this document,” he continued.
He mentioned poems, verses of the Bible, lyrics of songs and senators and generals to maintain control of the floor. He designed from the speeches of iconic American characters such as Harriet Tubman, John McCain and John Lewis. The more he continued, the more he became allolite.
Booker has read personal stories of people affected by Trump’s policies – including a long report of a Canadian woman who was held by the immigration authorities for 12 days. His voice broke from time to time while reading those difficulties of difficulty.
“These are not normal times in America and should not be treated as such,” he said.
Booker did not leave the room all the time, even for a break in the bathroom. His only truce from speaking was to listen to the questions of the democratic companions, who ran in line to show support for the protest of Booker and join the condemnation of Trump.
Chuck Schumer, the best democrat of the Senate, was among them.
“Your strength, your fortress, your clarity, has been surprising to say the least, and all of America is paying attention to what you are saying,” he told Booker.
It was Schumer, who returned again when the record had been beaten, to let the news enter Booker.
“Do you know you just beat the album? Do you know how proud of this Caucus is? You know how proud of you is proud of you,” he said.
Although it is not technically a Filibuster – a form of protest in which a legislator holds the floor of the legislative chamber in order to delay a vote – Booker’s speech interrupted the work of the Senate, which should have convened at noon.
His speech was both a sign of despair and a call to arms.
Seventy -one days in Trump’s second mandate, the Democratic Party fought to find a common or consistent response to his agenda. The party was overwhelmed by the large executive orders to dismantle government agencies and expel immigrants. He is still fighting for the way they have lost the last elections and how to win others.
The democratic base shouted that its leaders do something, anything, to curb the policies of the Trump administration, becoming more and more frustrated by the disconnection of his leadership that ages.
Part of that energy was directed towards Bernie Sanders and Alexandria OCasio-Cortez, who made the leaders of their party impotent like them they kept huge gatherings across the country In protest against Trump.
At the same time, Trump faced little or no opposition from his own party as he tested the limits of presidential power, which made the congress more irrelevant and helpless than he has in decades.
It was perhaps taking into account everything that Booker, a well -known admirer of the Senate trial, chose the Chamber to take a position. But he did it with a recognition of his limits.
“How can we stop them? I’m sorry to say that we cover powerful positions. We are elected by great states, but we are in the minority right now,” he said. “It will take three people of consciousness on that side,” he added, indicating the republican side of the room to highlight the GoP control.
Booker repeatedly invoked the Constitution while throwing himself against Trump, occasionally appealing to the president’s supporters.
“He promised to lower shopping prices – they are higher. He promised to be a better administrator of the economy – it is worse than what he has inherited. The more and several times, he is breaking his promises and doing outrageous things how to disappear people from the American roads, violating the fundamental principles of this document,” he said.
While approaching 20 hours, Booker became emotional but lively as he invoked the protest movements of the American past and asked for an action.
“What do I want from my American companions? Do better than me, let’s do better than us, in this body. We are imperfect and failed people,” he said.
“My voice is inadequate. My efforts are inadequate today to stop what they are trying to do. But we, people, are powerful. We are strong. We have changed the story. We have folded the arc of the moral universe. And now that moral moment is again.”
