Juana Summers

Cory Booker has always had a knack for getting attention.

As a city councilman in Newark, New Jersey, he staged a 10-day hunger strike at a housing project.

As mayor of Newark, he personally shoveled residents' sidewalks and once literally ran into a burning building to save a neighbor.

That's what he told NPR in 2012.

When Booker became a U.S.

senator and then a Democratic presidential candidate, he says he made an effort to make friendships across the aisle.

That was from a CNN presidential primary debate in 2019.

These days, Booker is calling for urgent resistance.

Like other Democrats, the New Jersey senator feels that President Trump is pulling the country in a dangerously authoritarian direction.

And he is also aware that Democrats don't actually control any levers of power in the federal government.

So last year, he took to the Senate floor and started criticizing Trump administration policies.

And he didn't stop until 25 hours later.

He'd broken the record for the longest continuous Senate floor speech.

In addition to speaking often about President Trump and congressional Republicans, but also what he doesn't like in his own party, Cory Booker has gotten attention for his new book.

It compiles his thoughts about American ideals through the histories of American leaders.

Consider this.

In our interview, Cory Booker says that this moment in American politics calls for new leadership.

Does he see himself among those potential leaders?

From NPR, I'm Juana Summers.

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