US Democratic Senator Cory Booker accused President Donald Trump of “recklessly” challenging the nation's democratic institutions in a marathon speech that broke a nearly seven-decade record on Tuesday for length.
The 55-year-old New Jersey politician, in a speech that began at 7pm on Monday and lasted 25 hours and five minutes, criticised the campaign by the Republican President and his billionaire top adviser Elon Musk to slash large sections of the federal government.
“Our institutions are being recklessly and unconstitutionally attacked and even shattered,” said Mr Booker, who was first elected to the Senate in 2013.
Mr Booker, who is black, broke the record for the longest continuous speech previously held by segregationist Senator Strom Thurmond of South Carolina.
In the summer of 1957, Mr Thurmond launched a filibuster against civil rights legislation that lasted 24 hours and 18 minutes. In the end, Thurmond failed in his mission to block a bill that expanded federal protections of voting rights for black people.
As Mr Booker stood for hour after hour, he appeared to have nothing more than a couple glasses of water to sustain him. He later told reporters that he had fasted for days before the speech and stopped drinking fluids the night before.
He repeatedly referred to activists getting into “good trouble” by speaking out against Mr Trump's actions, using a term that the late Democratic Representative John Lewis, a civil-rights leader, had often employed.
Mr Trump in his first weeks in office has moved to outright shutter government arms including the Department of Education and withhold congressionally approved spending. His administration has also questioned the authority of the federal courts to constrain its policies.
Democratic voters have become restive in recent weeks as Mr Trump, backed by a Republican-controlled Congress, has shaken up long-established US alliances and cut more than 100,000 federal workers.
Their anger has been aimed both at Republican legislators and the party's own leaders, including top Senate Democrat Chuck Schumer and top House of Representatives Democrat Hakeem Jeffries, for not being aggressive enough in challenging Mr Trump.
Mr Schumer paused Mr Booker late in his speech to ask, “Do you know you have broken the record?”
“I know now,” Mr Booker responded, dabbing his eyes with a tissue before continuing.
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Champions League quarter-final, first leg
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Match on BeIN Sports
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The%20specs
War on waste
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Red flags
- Promises of high, fixed or 'guaranteed' returns.
- Unregulated structured products or complex investments often used to bypass traditional safeguards.
- Lack of clear information, vague language, no access to audited financials.
- Overseas companies targeting investors in other jurisdictions - this can make legal recovery difficult.
- Hard-selling tactics - creating urgency, offering 'exclusive' deals.
Courtesy: Carol Glynn, founder of Conscious Finance Coaching
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Combating coronavirus
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Company%20profile
Key facilities
- Olympic-size swimming pool with a split bulkhead for multi-use configurations, including water polo and 50m/25m training lanes
- Premier League-standard football pitch
- 400m Olympic running track
- NBA-spec basketball court with auditorium
- 600-seat auditorium
- Spaces for historical and cultural exploration
- An elevated football field that doubles as a helipad
- Specialist robotics and science laboratories
- AR and VR-enabled learning centres
- Disruption Lab and Research Centre for developing entrepreneurial skills
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The bio
Studied up to grade 12 in Vatanappally, a village in India’s southern Thrissur district
Was a middle distance state athletics champion in school
Enjoys driving to Fujairah and Ras Al Khaimah with family
His dream is to continue working as a social worker and help people
Has seven diaries in which he has jotted down notes about his work and money he earned
Keeps the diaries in his car to remember his journey in the Emirates
The specs
- Engine: 3.9-litre twin-turbo V8
- Power: 640hp
- Torque: 760nm
- On sale: 2026
- Price: Not announced yet
Conflict, drought, famine
Estimates of the number of deaths caused by the famine range from 400,000 to 1 million, according to a document prepared for the UK House of Lords in 2024.
It has been claimed that the policies of the Ethiopian government, which took control after deposing Emperor Haile Selassie in a military-led revolution in 1974, contributed to the scale of the famine.
Dr Miriam Bradley, senior lecturer in humanitarian studies at the University of Manchester, has argued that, by the early 1980s, “several government policies combined to cause, rather than prevent, a famine which lasted from 1983 to 1985. Mengistu’s government imposed Stalinist-model agricultural policies involving forced collectivisation and villagisation [relocation of communities into planned villages].
The West became aware of the catastrophe through a series of BBC News reports by journalist Michael Buerk in October 1984 describing a “biblical famine” and containing graphic images of thousands of people, including children, facing starvation.
Band Aid
Bob Geldof, singer with the Irish rock group The Boomtown Rats, formed Band Aid in response to the horrific images shown in the news broadcasts.
With Midge Ure of the band Ultravox, he wrote the hit charity single Do They Know it’s Christmas in December 1984, featuring a string of high-profile musicians.
Following the single’s success, the idea to stage a rock concert evolved.
Live Aid was a series of simultaneous concerts that took place at Wembley Stadium in London, John F Kennedy Stadium in Philadelphia, the US, and at various other venues across the world.
The combined event was broadcast to an estimated worldwide audience of 1.5 billion.
Killing of Qassem Suleimani
National Editorial: Suleimani has been killed, now we must de-escalate
Mina Al Oraibi: Air strike casts a long shadow over the decade ahead
Jack Moore: Why the assassination is such a monumental gamble
Damien McElroy: A CEO tasked with spreading Iran's influence
Hussein Ibish: Trump's order on solid constitutional ground
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