So long, Strom: Cory Booker breaks Thurmond's Senate record with 25-hour speech

Cory Booker wrote himself into the Senate annals Tuesday, setting a new record for the chamber’s longest speech when he held the floor for more than 25 hours and surpassed the late Sen. Strom Thurmond’s 1957 filibuster against civil rights.

The New Jersey Democrat took the floor at 6:59 p.m. on Monday, saying he was doing so with the “intention of disrupting the normal business of the United States Senate for as long as I am physically able” in order to protest the actions of President Donald Trump and his administration.

At 7:18 p.m. Tuesday, he surpassed Thurmond’s 1957 speech, which lasted 24 hours and 18 minutes, according to the Senate historian. Booker yielded the floor at 8:05 p.m., adding 48 minutes to the record.

“Maybe my ego got caught up that maybe, maybe, just maybe, I could break this record of the man who tried to stop the rights upon which I stand,” Booker said. "I’m not here, though, because of his speech, I’m here despite his speech."

Booker did not indicate before beginning his marathon speech that he intended to set a new record. He suggested he hoped to be able to last as long as he did in 2016, when he and Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) held the floor for roughly 15 hours to discuss gun violence.

But as Tuesday crept on and Booker showed no sign of losing momentum, his colleagues began to openly discuss whether Thurmond’s 67-year-old record could fall.

“We hope and believe he will break the record. He's close to it now,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer told reporters Tuesday afternoon.

Booker, who was sworn into the Senate in 2013, was joined on the floor at various points during his speech by dozens of his Democratic colleagues, who engaged in extended colloquies with Booker — a tactic that allowed Booker to rest his voice while still maintaining control of the floor. He did not leave the Senate chamber.

Murphy joined Booker on the floor as he closed in on Thurmond’s record Tuesday evening and highlighted the contrast in the circumstances between Booker’s speech and the South Carolina segregationist’s.

“What you have done here today, Senator Booker, couldn’t be more different than what occurred on this floor in 1957,” Murphy said, referring to Thurmond’s unsuccessful attempt to block an early piece of U.S. civil rights law. Booker is one of five Black senators currently in office.

Schumer also praised Booker when he briefly joined him on the Senate floor Tuesday: “Your strength, your fortitude, your clarity has been nothing short of amazing.”

At various points, tens of thousands of viewers watched Booker on social media platforms, suggesting that Booker had managed to harness some of the frustration Democrats have felt in the aftermath of the GOP’s electoral victories last year — and in the wake of the tumultuous first months of Trump’s second term.

“All of America is paying attention to what you're saying,” added Schumer, who came under fierce criticism inside his party after moving forward with a GOP funding bill last month. “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.”

Booker, a former mayor of Newark, has long sought a higher profile in national Democratic politics. He launched a presidential run in 2019 but never found traction, withdrawing from the race weeks before the Iowa caucuses. He occupies a junior position in the Senate Democratic leadership, as strategic communications chair, and is seen by his colleagues as someone who could easily move higher in the ranks if he chooses to do so.

In addition to Schumer and Murphy, Sens. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, Mazie Hirono of Hawaii and Dick Durbin of Illinois, among others, joined Booker on the floor. House Democrats were also spotted going into the Senate chamber to watch parts of Booker’s speech, including House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and members of the Congressional Black Caucus.

Booker started the speech with two glasses of water at his desk that he occasionally sipped from and a thick binder of notes that he consulted intermittently. Shortly after setting the record, he joked that he needed to stop talking and “go deal with some of the biological urgencies I'm feeling."

Over the course of his speech, Booker touched on a range of Trump administration policies and GOP legislative plans, including Trump’s plans for tariffs, the Elon Musk-led effort to slash the federal bureaucracy and the potential cuts to Medicaid embedded in a House GOP budget plan.

“The vote to pass this dangerous blueprint did not come easily and we will make sure that lawmakers know that enacting these cuts would be to abandon older Americans,” he said, addressing Medicaid.

Booker also talked about Trump’s foreign policy moves, including his warmer tone toward Russian President Vladimir Putin and criticism of NATO, and cited support from GOP senators for the trans-Atlantic alliance.

After Booker yielded the floor, the Senate moved to vote on the confirmation of Matthew Whitaker as U.S. ambassador to NATO. Booker's speech delayed that vote, as well as an expected vote on a Democratic effort to thwart some of Trump's planned tariffs.