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Democratic voters have been crying out for leadership, and Sen. Cory Booker hears you. Booker has taken over the Senate floor and plans to hold the floor for as long as he can stand to share the stories of people who are being harmed by Trump’s policies.
Watch Booker Live:
Booker said in his opening remarks:
I rise tonight with the intention of disrupting the normal business of the United States Senate for as long as I am physically able.
I rise tonight because our nation is in crisis:
Bedrock commitments are being broken;
Unnecessary hardship is being borne by Americans of all backgrounds;
Our institutions are being recklessly and unconstitutionally attacked and even shattered.
In just 71 days, the President has inflicted harm after harm on Americans’ safety; financial stability; the foundations of our democracy; and any sense of common decency.
These are not normal times in our nation.
And 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.
Generations from now will look back at this moment and have a single question — where were you?
When our country was in crisis and when the American people were asking for our help — did we speak up?
When the 73 million American seniors who rely on Social Security were told that from now on, there will be no one to answer when they call for help; when our seniors were afraid and worried because of the menacing of an American president, did we speak up?
When prices at the grocery store were skyrocketing and the stock market was plunging and Americans were hurting and looking for help –
and at the same time, the President of the United States was launching a trade war on our allies;
firing the regulators who investigate America’s biggest banks and corporations;
dismantling the agency that protects consumers from fraud;
peddling his own meme coin;
and doing a car commercial for the richest man in the world in front of the White House;
Video of Booker talking about Medicaid cuts:
When the President tried to take health care away from people with disabilities in order to pay for tax cuts for the billionaires sitting on the dais at his inauguration and in his cabinet meetings at the White House;
When he gutted public education; slashed funding for pediatric cancer research; and fired thousands of veterans who risked their lives for this country;
When he abandoned our allies and our international commitments at a time when floods, fires, hurricanes, and droughts are devastating communities across the country, and outbreaks of dangerous infectious diseases are still a global threat.
When the American press was being censored;
when international students were being disappeared from American communities;
when American universities were being silenced;
when American law firms were being targeted;
when the people who attacked the police officers defending this building and American democracy on January 6th weren’t just pardoned, but were celebrated by the man in the highest office in the land;
When Americans from across the country were all speaking up and saying:
this is not right;
this is un-American;
this is not who we are.
Did we speak up?
I rise tonight because to be silent at this moment of national crisis would be a betrayal, and because at stake in this moment is nothing less than everything that makes us who we are.
This is not a filibuster.
It is a floor speech. The difference is that a filibuster is a prolonged speech to block a vote from happening. A filibuster is a refusal to yield the floor. Booker is not trying to block anything from happening. He is engaging in a prolonged floor speech to call attention to an issue. There is no need for his colleagues to speak as well because it isn’t a filibuster.
However, in the recent past, senators have pulled all-nighters where a group of them come together to hold the floor to call attention to an issue.
Booker’s speech is what real leadership looks like.
Democrats need to be disruptive and not treat the Trump presidency like the status quo.
Cory Booker is showing them the way.
What do you think of Booker’s “long floor speech?” Join the conversation in the comments below.
