Starting on March 31, 2025, Senator Cory Booker began speaking. He spoke for 25 hours and four minutes straight, breaking the previous record for the longest speech ever given on the Senate floor. The last record was held by Senator Strom Thurmond in 1957 with the intent to delay or block the Civil Rights Act of 1957, which was meant to protect voting rights for Black people. After the speech, Booker said to MSNBC, “Strom Thurmond’s record always kind of just really irked me — that the longest speech on our great Senate floor was someone who was trying to stop people like me from being in the Senate.”
During his speech Sen. Booker never left the chamber to use the restroom, did not eat, and took very few sips of water. The constraint and dedication involved in giving a speech such as this, as well as the physical hardship, is not something to be downplayed. Experts who witnessed the speech even said Sen. Booker did not appear to tire even in the final minutes of his speech. This may be explained by research showing that high levels of motivation can cause a person to stay more engaged and present which helps override fatigue.
So, what was the topic that caused Sen. Booker to feel so passionate that he was able to give a 25 hour speech? His speech was primarily a call of resistance against President Donald Trump’s time in office and Elon Musk’s involvement. He said, “In just 71 days, the president of the United States has inflicted so much harm on Americans’ safety, financial stability, the core foundations of our democracy and even our aspirations as a people (for) our highest offices, a sense of common decency.” He spoke on a large range of subjects from healthcare, immigration, the environment, the economy, national security, and much more. Sen. Booker brought with him 1,164 pages of prepared material and shared over 200 stories sent to him from concerned citizens.
Besides breaking records, this speech was instrumental due to the amount of people who heard and were inspired by it. Over 300,000 people watched Sen Booker’s live stream from multiple platforms at once — his TikTok live stream got over 350 million likes, and over 28,000 voicemails with words of encouragement were left to his office.
One of the goals of his speech was simply to do that: inspire and ignite people into action. He started and ended his speech with the same quote by John Lewis, “He said for us to go out and cause some good trouble, necessary trouble to redeem the soul of our nation. Let’s be bold in America for a vision that inspires with hope. It starts with the people of the United States of America.” He is calling on American people to stand up for what they believe in and for each individual to fight for what is right. Let’s listen.