Fresh from scandal over group chat attack plans, Hegseth's conduct opens him to ridicule
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Really happy to have you here. Happy Monday. Something is happening right now, right this second in Washington, in the Senate. And this is a bit of a surprise. At 7 p.m. Eastern tonight, Democratic Senator Cory Booker of New Jersey started talking on the floor of the Senate. And I think to the surprise of all his colleagues, he soon made clear that he is not intending to stop talking tonight.
Tonight, I rise with the intention of getting in some good trouble. I rise with the intention of disrupting 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. Republicans as well as Democrats are talking to me about what they feel is a sense of dread about a growing crisis or what they point to about what is going wrong, that bedrock commitments in our country that both sides rely on, that people from all backgrounds rely on, those bedrock commitments are being broken. Unnecessary hardships are being borne by Americans of all backgrounds. and institutions which are special in America, which are precious, which are unique in our country, are being recklessly, and I would say even unconstitutionally affected, attacked, and even shattered. In just 71 days, a 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 from our highest offices, a sense of common decency. These are not normal times in America, and they should not be treated as such.
Again, this does not appear to be a normal speech in the United States Senate ongoing right now in Washington. Senator Cory Booker has taken over the Senate floor tonight and is saying that he does not intend to relinquish the floor. He intends to, as he said, it disrupt the normal business of the United States Senate. He says, quote, For as long as I am physically able. and he is a fit and able man, so I don't know how long that means he's going to be there. The last thing that Senator Booker was involved in that was anything like this was nearly a decade ago, when Senator Chris Murphy, you may remember this, held the floor for 15 hours. This was in protest of gun violence. It was right after the Pulse nightclub massacre in 2016. Senator Cory Booker actually...
supported him for those 15 hours and participated in part of that filibuster. That 15-hour-plus filibuster succeeded nine years ago in forcing the Senate to allow some votes on some gun safety laws. The following year, 2017, Oregon Senator Jeff Merkley held the floor for more than 15 hours protesting Republicans effectively stealing a seat on the United States Supreme Court when they would not allow confirmation proceedings to go ahead for President Obama's nominee, Merrick Garland, and they instead essentially held that seat open until Donald Trump could put a Republican nominee on the bench instead. In terms of the record here, the longest filibuster in American history was 1957. Radical segregationist Strom Thurmond held the Senate floor for 24 hours and 18 minutes, all to block the passage of a civil rights bill. I do not know if Senator Cory Booker intends to try to go that long. I don't know if it's humanly possible to do that without sitting down.
Without taking a bathroom break, I think Senator Thurmond did take a bathroom break, but senators now would not be allowed to do that. That said, 24 hours is almost humanly impossible. Senator Cory Booker started tonight at 7 p.m. Eastern time. He said, I rise tonight with the intention of disrupting the normal business of the United States Senate for as long as I am physically able. I do not know how long Senator Cory Booker is going to be out there, but it looks like he's intending to be there for the long haul. So we will have eyes on that all night. We've got Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal, former chair of the Progressive Caucus, who's going to be joining us in just a moment. We'll be checking in on what's going on with Senator Booker over the course of the night.
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