The Week With Monique | Cory Booker's 25 Hour Speech & Renewed Hope
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What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
Greetings, Lemonation. I'm Monique Presley with the Week with Monique. Two words. Cory Booker. That's what we have to talk about this week. Because talking about anything else, sure, there's all kinds of news as there always is.
Why is Cory Booker's 25-hour Senate speech the focus of this episode?
And some of it is very pressing. And we absolutely should be paying attention to it. So I hope you're following me on my YouTube channel at Monique Presley Channel. And I know that Don's been covering a great bit of it here, giving you the news you need and giving you the opinion that you want that's based on facts and based on data. But for this week, Where we talk about that one thing, it's gotta be Senator Cory Booker of New Jersey and the heroic efforts that he made in order to wake us up, in order to bring us back to attention, in order to focus us in on the issues that matter and focuses in on the danger, the threat, the harm that is occurring because of the Trump administration and the actions that they are taking that are not for the American people, but against them.
This week, we watched Senator Cory Booker put his body on the line, all of his very considerable brainpower on the line, his history as a statesman, as a former mayor, As a football player, as a Rhodes scholar, he brought it all to the floor of the Senate at the US Capitol and started what is now the history making longest speech ever to be given there. Senator Cory Booker has broken the record once held by segregationist white supremacist Senator Strom Thurmond. who spent 24 hours and 18 minutes on the Senate floor fighting against civil rights for women and for people of color, fighting against civil rights. And it is perfection, chef's kiss, that the person who would break that record would be the epitome of everything Strom Thurmond couldn't have imagined then and did not want to imagine, that a black man,
bold, brilliant, powerful, loving, practicing kindness, full of faith, would be the person, the leader, to topple that record, who now, forevermore, when people mention the longest speech that's given, that has held up the regular order of business in the Congress, Cory Booker. Two words, Cory Booker. Now, I want to talk to you about some of the important things that Senator Booker wanted us to be paying attention to. The reason that he felt it necessary to start some good trouble in the tradition of Representative John Lewis, a hero to us all, whose loss we miss to this very day. But in that tradition of good trouble, he came to the Senate floor and he talked about many issues, many issues. But I have a personal story that I haven't been able to tell yet, that I really don't even know if I have the words for right now, but I'm going to try.
Because the minute I saw five days ago that Senator Booker announced that he was going to the floor and that he was going to be what you would know as filibustering, except for filibuster is technically when there is an active piece of legislation that someone is going to present. So what he was doing was retaining the floor, holding the floor, preventing the regular order of business through a speech with the assistance of his colleagues who were able to come in and ask him questions, long-ass questions sometimes, in order to give him a break. But he still retained the floor while all that was happening. When I saw that he was going to do that, I said immediately, I've got to be there. I'm going to be there.
If they're letting people in, I'm going to be there in person and show support because I sensed, I knew that what he was doing was the shaking, was the bubble bursting, was like the scratch of the itch that we needed in order to wake us up. I sensed that in my spirit. And I had interviewed him like a month ago where he was talking about how we needed to be taking big, bold action. And I just knew that I needed to be a part of that history because you know what? You can either watch history happen or you can get in there and make some history. You can be a part of the history that's happening. So I called my good friend and colleague, Elizabeth Booker.
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