Cory Booker's marathon speech facts for kids

Cory Anthony Booker in 2025

From March 31 to April 1, 2025, Cory Booker, the senior Democratic senator from New Jersey, delivered the longest speech in United States Senate history to protest the second presidency of Donald Trump and the operations of Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency.

Booker began speaking at 7 p.m. EDT on March 31 and concluded at 8:05 p.m on April 1, 2025. The speech lasted 25 hours and 5 minutes, surpassing the previous longest speech in Senate history, Strom Thurmond's 24-hour and 18-minute long filibuster of the Civil Rights Act of 1957.

Speech

The speech began at 7 p.m. EDT on March 31, 2025, during unrelated deliberations for Matthew Whitaker's nomination to serve as ambassador to NATO. It was televised on C-SPAN and livestreamed on Booker's TikTok, YouTube, Twitter, and Instagram accounts. Several news organizations had live feeds for the speech, including the Associated Press, PBS, CBS News, MSNBC, and The Guardian. Booker dedicated the beginning of his speech to John Lewis, a civil rights activist and representative who died in 2020. Booker's speech was intended to protest Donald Trump's second presidency, including efforts to eliminate the Department of Education, ignore judicial mandates, and deport participants of the 2024 pro-Palestinian protests on university campuses. He criticized Trump and his advisor, Elon Musk, for having "shown a complete disregard for the rule of law, the Constitution, and the needs of the American people." Booker also criticized the Department of Government Efficiency led by Musk. Booker directed a Senate page to remove his chair. He read multiple three-ring binders, including articles from bipartisan sources and letters from his constituents.

At 8:06 p.m. EDT on April 1, Booker ceased speaking. Booker vowed to remain on the floor with the intention of "disrupting the normal business of the United States Senate for as long as [he was] physically able". During his speech, he yielded to questions, while retaining the floor, from several Democratic senators, including Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer, Lisa Blunt Rochester, Chris Murphy, Dick Durbin, Andy Kim, Peter Welch, Kirsten Gillibrand, Adam Schiff, Raphael Warnock, Amy Klobuchar, Tammy Duckworth, Chris Coons, Tim Kaine, Angela Alsobrooks, Catherine Cortez Masto, Mark Kelly, Patty Murray, Tammy Baldwin, Angus King, Ed Markey, Tina Smith, Jeanne Shaheen, and Elizabeth Warren, and read letters from constituents. Booker invoked Arizona senator John McCain and his vote to kill the American Health Care Act, a bill that would have partially repealed the Affordable Care Act. He read an account by Jasmine Mooney, a Canadian who was detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, for thirty minutes of his speech. Booker also included a list of executive orders in Trump's second presidency during his speech.