Who is Cory Booker? The Democrat who broke record for longest Senate speech (and why it’s not a filibuster)
A Democratic senator has delivered the longest ever speech in the US Senate in protest against Donald Trump.
Cory Booker, 55, took to the floor at 7pm local time on Monday – midnight in the UK – saying he would remain there as long as he was “physically able”.
He finally concluded at 8.04pm local time (1.04am in the UK) the following day, clocking in with 25 hours and four minutes – surpassing the previous record of 24 hours and 18 minutes.
The senator for New Jersey said his goal was to “uplift the stories of Americans who are being harmed by the Trump administration’s reckless actions, attempts to undermine our institutions, and disregard for the rule of law”.
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During his speech, Mr Booker only took brief breaks from speaking, when he gave the floor instead to questions from his Democratic colleagues, according to Sky News’ US partner network, NBC News.
The rules of the Senate dictate a speaker holds the floor as long as they stay at the podium – meaning he could not leave at any point, even to go to the toilet or to eat.
So who exactly is the Democratic senator, what was his multi-hour speech all about – and how did he do it?
Mr Booker has criticised the Trump administration during his speech. Pic: Senate Television via AP
Rising star of Democratic Party
Mr Booker was born in Washington DC and moved to northern New Jersey when he was a boy.
He is a graduate of Stanford University and Yale Law and started his career as a lawyer for charities.
Entering politics, he was considered a rising star in the Democratic Party. He was elected to serve on the city council of New Jersey’s biggest state, Newark, and then as mayor, a position he held until 2013.
He was first elected to the US Senate in 2013 during a special election held after the death of politician and businessman Frank Lautenberg.
He went on to win his first full term in 2014 and was re-elected in 2020.
2020 presidential bid
In February 2019 Mr Booker launched his bid for the US presidency from the steps of his home in Newark.
At the time, he played on his personal ties to the “low-income, inner city community” and urged for the US to return to a “common sense of purpose”.
He later dropped out of the race after struggling to raise the money required to make a bid for the White House.
Senator Cory Booker. Pic: AP
Why did he speak in the Senate – and what did he say?
By holding the floor in the Senate, Mr Booker protested against the Trump administration.
Before he began, the senator said he had the intention of “getting in some good trouble”, NBC News reported.
He started by saying he intended to disrupt “the normal business of the United States Senate for as long as I am physically able”.
“I rise tonight because I believe sincerely that our country is in crisis,” he said.
In the hours that followed, he gave a warning about the “grave and urgent” threat Americans faced from the Trump administration, arguing that “bedrock commitments” to the country “are being broken.”
He read letters from constituents about how Mr Trump’s cuts were already taking a toll on their lives.
He claimed the US was giving up being a global leader, citing Mr Trump’s proposals to take over Greenland and Canada while feuding with longtime allies.
He also occasionally took aim at Elon Musk, the richest person in the world, who is advising Mr Trump and leading the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).
“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,” Mr Booker said on the floor.
“These are not normal times in America. And they should not be treated as such in the United States Senate.”
“Twelve hours now I’m standing, and I’m still going strong, because this president is wrong, and he’s violating principles that we hold dear and principles in this document that are so clear and plain,” Mr Booker said at around 7am on Tuesday, holding up a copy of the Constitution.
Appearing to waver slightly at times, Mr Booker was accompanied by Senator Chris Murphy. In 2016, Mr Booker joined the Connecticut Democrat when he held the floor for almost 15 hours to argue for gun control legislation.
Pic: Senate TV / Reuters
22 hours in, Mr Booker acknowledged he was struggling.
“I don’t have much gas left in the tank,” he said at around 5pm, before continuing.
“More Americans need to stand up and say enough is enough,” he said.
While the main motivation for the speech was to stand up to the Trump administration, Mr Booker later said he wanted to break the record previously set by Senator Strom Thurmond in 1957, who was protesting the Civil Rights Act.
During an MSNBC interview Tuesday night, Mr Booker said Mr Thurmond’s record “always kind of just really irked me”.
“The longest speech on our great Senate floor was someone who was trying to stop people like me from being in the Senate. So to surpass that was something I didn’t know if we could do, but it was something that was really – once we got closer, became more and more important,” he said.
A standing ovation and millions of TikTok likes
At 7.45pm, having already broken the record, Mr Booker said he would “stop soon”.
Minutes after he broke the record, he said: “I want to go a little bit past this, and then I’m gonna, I’m gonna deal with some of the biological urgencies I’m feeling.”
Then finally, at 8.04pm, he ended his speech to a standing ovation from Senate colleagues.
“This is a moral moment. It’s not left or right; it’s right or wrong. Let’s get in good trouble. I yield the floor,” Mr Booker concluded.
A live feed of the speech on the senator’s TikTok account had more than 350 million likes, according to Mr Booker’s office, which said that it had also received more than 28,000 voicemails of encouragement.
After the speech, he wrote on X: “I may be tired and a little hoarse, but as I said again and again on the Senate floor, this is a moment where we cannot afford to be silent, when we must speak up.
“I believe that history will show we rose to meet this moment.
“It will show we did not let the chaos and division go unanswered. It will show that when our president chose to spread lies and sow fear, we chose to come together, to work together, and to rise together.”
How did he prepare for it?
Mr Booker’s speech wasn’t an impromptu one; his office said it stemmed from 1,164 pages of prepared material.
But it wasn’t just the speech itself that the senator had to prepare for – it was the physical demands of the display.
Mr Booker later told reporters that in preparation for the speech, he had stopped eating days in advance.
“My strategy was to stop eating – I think I stopped eating on Friday – and then to stop drinking the night before I started,” he said, adding that those decisions had left him dehydrated and with cramped muscles.
Senator Chris Murphy, who was with Mr Booker overnight during his speech, spoke admiringly of his performance – and endurance – as it headed into hour 23.
“It’s really hard to get your body past hour 22 and 23,” Mr Murphy said, “I just don’t think he’s going to stop until he has to stop.”
Asked whether Mr Booker wore a nappy or a catheter, Mr Murphy laughed and said he wasn’t the person to ask. A spokesperson for Mr Booker said he hadn’t worn either.
He noted that Mr Booker had pain medicine in his desk drawer in case he needed it.
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Why it was not a filibuster
Some reports have referred to Mr Booker’s speech as a filibuster, but technically it was not.
A filibuster is a speech meant to halt the advance of a specific piece of legislation.
Mr Booker’s performance was instead a broader critique of Mr Trump’s agenda, meant to hold up any business scheduled to take place in the Senate and draw attention to what Democrats are doing to contest the president.
Democrats have been forced to use these types of opposition methods as they do not hold a majority in either congressional chamber.
Mr Booker has been involved in a filibuster, joining fellow senator Chris Murphy for his nearly 15-hour speech to advocate for gun control in 2016.
Donald Trump has announced his “highly anticipated” meeting with Vladimir Putin will take place next Friday in the US state of Alaska.
The two presidents are expected to discuss the war in Ukraine – with the talks potentially leading to a breakthrough in Mr Trump’s effort to end the conflict.
But there’s no guarantee it will stop the fighting since Moscow and Kyiv remain far apart on their conditions for peace.
Earlier, the US president told reporters “we’re getting very close to a deal” that would end the war.
Mr Trump added there will be “some swapping of territories to the betterment of both sides”.
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‘I’m not against meeting Zelenskyy’
The meeting between the two leaders will be the first US-Russia summit since 2021, when former US President Joe Biden met Mr Putin in Switzerland.
Mr Trump wrote on Truth Social: “The highly anticipated meeting between myself, as President of the United States of America, and President Vladimir Putin, of Russia, will take place next Friday, August 15, 2025, in the Great State of Alaska. Further details to follow. Thank you for your attention to this matter!”
The meeting was also confirmed by Kremlin aide Yury Ushakov, who said the leaders will “focus on discussing options for achieving a long-term peaceful resolution to the Ukrainian crisis”.
He added that the two presidents could meet in Russia in future and that an invitation has already been extended to Mr Trump.
Yesterday, Mr Trump had told reporters at the White House that he couldn’t announce where or when the meeting would take place but he would do so soon.
He also suggested that his meeting with the Russian leader could come before any discussion involving Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
“We’re going to have a meeting with Russia, start off with Russia. And we’ll announce a location. I think the location will be a very popular one,” Mr Trump said.
The US president added: “President Putin, I believe, wants to see peace, and Zelenskyy wants to see peace … in all fairness to President Zelenskyy, he’s getting everything he needs to, assuming we get something done.”
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Donald Trump, right, and Vladimir Putin at a summit in Vietnam in 2017. Pic: Reuters
Territory to form part of talks
Speaking about the role that territory will play in the peace talks, Mr Trump said: “You’re looking at a territory that’s been fought over for three-and-a-half years. A lot of Russians have died. A lot of Ukrainians have died.
“So we’re looking at that, but we’re actually looking to get some back, and some swapping.
“It’s complicated, actually. Nothing is easy. It’s very complicated. But we’re going to get some back.
“We’re going to get some switched. There’ll be some swapping of territories to the betterment of both.”
Analysts, including some close to the Kremlin, have suggested that Russia could offer to give up territory it controls outside of the four regions it claims to have annexed.
Pressed on if this was the last chance to make a major peace deal, Mr Trump said: “I don’t like using the term last chance … when those guns start going off, it’s awfully tough to get them to stop.”
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Trump says he will meet Putin
Western officials ‘to meet in UK’
Meanwhile, senior officials from the US, Ukraine and several European countries are due to meet in the UK this weekend to try and reach common positions ahead of the Trump-Putin meeting, according to Axios.
Ukraine and several NATO allies are reported to be privately concerned that Mr Trump might agree to Mr Putin’s proposals for ending the war without taking their positions into consideration.
Since his return to the White House in January, Mr Trump has moved to mend relations with Russia and sought to end the war – with public comments veering between admiration and sharp criticism of Mr Putin.
In a sign of his growing frustration with Russia’s refusal to halt its military offensive, Mr Trump had threatened to impose new sanctions and tariffs against Moscow – and countries that buy its exports – unless the Kremlin agreed to end the conflict.
A deadline was set for yesterday, but it is unclear whether these sanctions are taking effect, or if they will be delayed or cancelled in light of the talks.
Ukrainian servicemen of the 148th artillery brigade load ammunition into a M777 howitzer before firing in Zaporizhzhia.
Pic: AP
War grinds on ahead of talks
The meeting has been arranged as Russia’s bigger army is slowly advancing deeper into Ukraine at great cost in troops and armour while it relentlessly bombards Ukrainian cities.
Ukrainian forces are locked in intense battles along the 620-mile frontline that snakes from northeast to southeast Ukraine.
The Pokrovsk area of the eastern Donetsk region is taking the brunt of punishment as Russia seeks to break out into the neighbouring Dnipropetrovsk region.
US
Chris Hemsworth describes ‘gear shift’ after learning he’s 10 times more likely to get Alzheimer’s
Chris Hemsworth has told Sky News that finding out he had a greater chance of developing Alzheimer’s disease was a “gear shift” in his life motivations.
During a genetic test in season one of Limitless: Live Better Now, the Australian actor discovered that he is, biologically, eight to 10 times more likely than others to have the brain disorder during his lifetime as he carries two copies of the APOE4 gene.
He had first taken part in the National Geographic show to be its “guinea pig” and face new experiences that challenge the body and mind.
But after having the test, the 41-year-old Thor, Furiosa and Transformers star was faced with an unexpected truth.
Reuters file pic
One in every 50 people inherit two copies of the APOE4 gene and research has found that nearly all double carriers showed key early signs of the disease which causes dementia by the age of 55.
Everyone’s risk is different, and evidence suggests there are things you can do to reduce your risk whether you’re a carrier of the gene or not, including not smoking, reducing alcohol intake, daily exercise, monitoring cholesterol and blood pressure and eating a balanced diet.
Speaking of when he found out he was a double carrier, Hemsworth told Sky News: “It was just kind of this point in my life where up until your 40s, you’re kind of gathering data and information and it’s all reactionary and then you get to a point where you think, oh some of this sort of identity that I’ve sort of built doesn’t hold true anymore.
“There’s some inner sort of protest or inner voice that has a deeper need to understand and there’s deeper questions and what is the purpose and the why behind what I’m doing … and what am I seeking, what am I contributing, as opposed to just what I am collecting.”
Reacting on screen, he said it made him shift his focus to living better and increase the chances of him spending as much time as possible with his family and friends.
Pic: Disney
What’s changed in the second series?
The change in mindset is evident in season two.
“This time around, I was very involved in the orchestration and the sort of production and bringing together spaces that I was interested in or there was a deep curiosity or were deeply personal to me. And it was more sort of experiential journalism as opposed to a contestant in a challenging kind of fun, reality show.
He adds: “I was much more committed or invested in the experience.
“And I was a bit more educated on the topics too. I had to research, I had a deeper point of view, I suppose, personally, but also sort of the education I was given prior and I enjoyed that more, to be honest, I didn’t like that I felt very uncomfortable in the first season because I was standing around all these experts and I knew nothing about these topics, yet I was kind of asked to speak on them and so I felt like an imposter the entire time.”
Limitless: Live Better Now looks at the ways in which you can improve your brain and body’s health through endurance challenges and learning a new instrument.
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Chris Hemsworth with Ed Sheeran. Pic: Disney
Teaming up with Sheeran
Hemsworth chose the drums and, taking it to the extreme, was set the task of joining his friend Ed Sheeran on stage to play Thinking Out Loud.
“That fear and that anxiety was incredibly overwhelming,” Hemsworth says, detailing how he felt “underwater” in the weeks leading up to the event.
“It’s weird the way intense situations actually cause a hyper focus; it’s a survival mechanism of the brain.
“Some of the other challenges where if I did the training it was beneficial, but I could kind of muscle my way through it. You can’t do that with a musical instrument and then the realisation that the entire band is relying on you to keep time. And then 70,000 people are sitting there going, ‘please don’t wreck our favourite song’.”
Reflecting on the moment, he says it’s one of the most magical feelings he’s ever had.
“The joy was unlike anything I’ve ever experienced. You know, if you could bottle that and have it in a healthy way and not have all the negatives that someone may have for it, it was amazing. It was a true kind of one of my first probably proper out of body experiences, I suppose.
“It was like, I kind of remember being in the out, looking down at myself almost, kind of going, wow, I’m kind of floating along with this thing that’s so much bigger than me and I’m in true sort of flow state with it.”
National Geographic’s Limitless: Live Better Now is available to stream on Disney+ from 15 August.
It could be diplomatic dynamite.
The first meeting between a sitting US and Russian president in more than four years, following one of the bleakest periods in the history of their countries’ bilateral relations.
But a Putin–Trump summit does not necessarily mean there will be a ceasefire.
Ukraine war latest: Kremlin aide’s full statement on Trump-Putin talks
On the one hand, it could signal that a point of agreement has been reached and a face-to-face meeting is needed to seal the deal.
That has always been Russia’s stance. It’s consistently said it would only meet at a presidential level if there’s something to agree on.
On the other hand, there might not be anything substantive. It might just be for show.
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‘Good chance’ Trump will meet Putin soon
It might just be the latest attempt by the Kremlin to diffuse Donald Trump’s anger and dodge his deadline to end the war by Friday or face sanctions.
It would give Trump something that can be presented as progress, but in reality, it delivers anything but.
After all, there has certainly not been any sign that Moscow is willing to soften its negotiating position or step back from its goals on the battlefield.
Tellingly, perhaps, it’s this latter view which has been taken by some of the Russian press on Thursday.
Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin have not met face to face since the US president returned to the White House. File pic: Reuters
“Putin won” is the headline in Moskovsky Komsomolets regarding the Kremlin leader’s meeting with Witkoff.
The state-run tabloid quotes a political scientist, Marat Bashirov, who claims Putin “bought time” ahead of Friday’s deadline.
“It is noteworthy that in his rhetoric [on sanctions] Trump did not mention Russia at all,” the paper notes.
Komsomolskaya Pravda is similarly dismissive.
“Donald Trump has two simple interests in connection with Ukraine: to earn money for America, and political whistles and the Nobel Peace Prize for himself,” it says.
“Russia has its own interests,” it adds, “securing them is what Vladimir Putin will seek at a meeting with Trump.”
At this stage, the most likely location is the United Arab Emirates. Putin met the country’s president in the Kremlin today, and afterwards said it would be a “suitable location”. It felt like a strong hint.
And the UAE certainly makes sense.
It’s played mediator for a number of the prisoner swaps between Russia and Ukraine; it has good relations with the US (and was one of Trump’s stops on his recent Middle East tour); and most importantly for Moscow, it’s not a member of the International Criminal Court. So Putin doesn’t have to worry about being arrested.
But if NBC’s reports are correct, that a Putin-Trump summit is conditional on the Russian president meeting with Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelenskyy, then the summit may not happen at all.
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Until now, Putin has refused to meet Zelenskyy, despite numerous demands from Kyiv, because he views him as illegitimate.
The Kremlin said the prospect of a trilateral meeting between the leaders was mentioned by Witkoff on Wednesday, but the proposal was left “completely without comment” by Russia.
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