01-04-2025
Where does Booker's marathon floor speech rank among longest in Senate history?
Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) pulled an all-nighter and has delivered a marathon speech on the Senate floor looking to combat the Trump administration and its policies.
He's well on his way to breaking the record for longest speech, if he continues to deliver his remarks through the rest of the day.
Booker, a Democratic leader, rose to speak at about 7 p.m. EDT Monday and was still going as of about 2 p.m. EDT Tuesday.
He will break the record if he continues until at least 7:19 p.m. EDT Tuesday.
'These are not normal times in our nation,' he said. 'And they should not be treated as such in the United States Senate.'
Despite the length of Booker's remarks, it is not considered a filibuster, though it did disrupt Senate business since it ran past 12 p.m., when the upper chamber was set to gavel in.
Thurmond's 1957 civil rights debate on the Senate floor holds the record at 24 hours and 18 minutes long.
He began speaking on the civil rights debate at 8:54 p.m. and spoke until 9:12 p.m. the following day.
Thurmond broke the previously held record Sen. Wayne Morse set just four years prior.
D'Amato has the second-longest filibuster speech, from 1986. He was speaking about the Defense Authorization Act and spoke for 23 hours and 30 minutes.
Morse's 22-hour, 26-minute speech about the 1953 Submerged Lands Act was the longest in history when he delivered it.
The five-term Oregon senator spent just a handful years of his life as an independent; he left the Republican Party a year prior to the speech and joined the Democrats two years after it, remaining a Democrat until his 1974 death at the age of 73.
At 18 hours and counting, Booker has delivered the fifth-longest floor speech in Senate history.
He must remain on the floor until 7:19 p.m. EDT Tuesday to break the previously held record.
So far, he's spoken at length about what Democrats say are threats from the GOP to cut Medicaid and Social Security.
Booker's Democratic colleagues have come to the floor and ask questions. He asked a staffer to take away his chair so he wouldn't be tempted to sit down.
At times, he's read letters from constituents affected by the Trump administration's cuts since taking office.
Booker said he was going to speak with 'the intention of disrupting the normal business' of the Senate 'for as long as I am physically able.'
Cruz spoke about the Continuing Appropriations Act in 2013. He held the floor for 21 hours and 18 minutes.
During the speech, Cruz argued about defunding the Affordable Care Act. His remarks turned playful when he read his daughters a bedtime story through C-SPAN, reading aloud the lines of Dr. Seuss's 'Green Eggs and Ham.'
Updated at 4:23 p.m. EDT
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