[Chuck Schumer](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/chuck-schumer), the Democratic leader in the Senate, has reportedly been criticised by some of the party’s state governors for not resisting [Donald Trump](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/donaldtrump)’s agenda and cabinet nominees strongly enough. The exchange took place in a conference between Schumer and six Democratic governors that laid bare differences within the party over how to counteract a seemingly rampant Trump as he wreaks upheaval across the political landscape with an avalanche of executive orders, the [New York Times reported](https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/29/us/politics/chuck-schumer-trump-agenda-cabinet.html?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=1/30/25%20%20AM:&utm_term=Punchbowl%20AM%20and%20Active%20Subscribers%20from%20Memberful%20Combined). The governors, led by JB Pritzker of Illinois and Maura Healey of Massachusetts, pleaded with Schumer to slow down the confirmation of Trump’s cabinet by persuading fellow senators to vote against his nominees wherever possible. They said the party needed to generate more public opposition than senators had managed in the chamber so far. The appeal came in the week the Senate is meeting to confirm two of Trump’s most contentious cabinet picks, Robert F Kennedy Jr, as health and human services secretary, and Tulsi Gabbard, for the role of national intelligence director. In response, Schumer said Democrats had damaged the political standing of the new defence secretary, [Pete Hegseth](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/pete-hegseth), during his hearings, in which he was narrowly confirmed, and of Kennedy in the opening day of his confirmation hearing on Wednesday. The conference call followed a [controversial memo](https://www.washingtonpost.com/documents/deb7af80-48b6-4b8a-8bfa-3d84fd7c3ec8.pdf?itid=lk_inline_manual_2) from the office of management and budget ordering a “pause” on trillions of dollars of federal funds used for vital spending programmes. The [order was rescinded](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jan/29/trump-federal-funding-freeze) on Wednesday following a fierce backlash that led to a court ruling stalling it. After the meeting, Schumer’s office issued a statement saying the memo’s reversal was “thanks to Democrats’ work”. Andy Beshear, the Kentucky governor, reportedly told the meeting that Democrats needed to focus less on Trump’s “desecration” of American democracy in favour of a message that his administration was making life harder for ordinary Americans, which was the only way they would learn never to vote for someone like him again. Trump appeared more animated by the prospect of acquiring Greenland than on tackling the high prices of eggs and other groceries, which he promised to bring down on “day one” during his presidential campaign, Beshear reportedly said. In fact, Schumer addressed the rising egg prices and the effects of bird flu and challenged Trump to act in a [Senate floor speech](https://www.democrats.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/leader-schumer-floor-remarks-demanding-action-from-president-trump-to-address-the-soaring-cost-of-eggs-due-to-bird-flu-outbreaks) on Monday. [skip past newsletter promotion](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jan/30/chuck-schumer-democrats-criticism#EmailSignup-skip-link-10) Sign up to Fighting Back Big thinkers on what we can do to protect civil liberties and fundamental freedoms in a Trump presidency. From our opinion desk. **Privacy Notice:** Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our [Privacy Policy](https://www.theguardian.com/help/privacy-policy). We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google [Privacy Policy](https://policies.google.com/privacy) and [Terms of Service](https://policies.google.com/terms) apply. after newsletter promotion [Tim Walz](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/tim-walz), the Minnesota governor who was running mate of the defeated Democratic nominee Kamala Harris in last November’s election, said the party needed a higher television profile to project its governing alternative, rather than simply complaining about Trump’s actions. The Kansas governor, Laura Kelly, called for a “down and dirty” digital strategy to cope with the social media outreach of Trump and his supporters. Schumer responded by praising the work of [Cory Booker](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/cory-booker), the New Jersey senator who is charge of Senate Democrats’ social media strategy. Healey also lamented that the state governors were bearing the brunt of constituents’ complaints about the effect of Trump’s policies and leading the Democrats’ pushback – as reflected in the cases filed by state attorneys general against the attempt to cancel birthright citizenship and the freeze on federal grants and loans.

Senator Cory Booker, his voice still booming after more than a day spent on the Senate floor railing against the Trump administration, on Tuesday night surpassed Strom Thurmond for the longest Senate speech on record, in an act of astonishing stamina that he framed as a call to action. Mr. Booker, a New Jersey Democrat and one-time presidential candidate, began his speech at 7 p.m. on Monday, vowing to speak as long as he was “physically able.” In a show of physical and oratorical endurance, he has lasted deep into Tuesday, assailing President Trump’s cuts to government agencies and crackdown on immigration. At 7:19 p.m., 24 hours 19 minutes into his speech, Mr. Booker eclipsed Mr. Thurmond’s filibuster of a civil-rights bill in 1957. It was unclear for how much longer Mr. Booker might speak, though he said moments later that he would soon address “some of the biological urgencies I’m feeling.” Cheers broke out in the chamber as Mr. Booker passed Mr. Thurmond. For a moment, Mr. Booker addressed the man he had eclipsed. “To hate him is wrong, and maybe my ego got too caught up that if I stood here, maybe, maybe, just maybe, I could break this record of the man who tried to stop the rights upon which I stand,” Mr. Booker said. “I’m not here though because of his speech. I’m here despite his speech. I’m here because as powerful as he was, the people were more powerful.” Earlier, at 4:20 p.m., Mr. Booker passed Senator Ted Cruz’s [memorable](https://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/26/us/politics/senate-budget-battle.html) 21-hour-and-19-minute [harangue](https://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/26/us/politics/senate-budget-battle.html) of President Barack Obama’s Affordable Care Act in 2013. As the hours dragged on Tuesday and Mr. Booker kept speaking, tens of thousands followed along on livestreams, curious to see how long he might go. Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and [log into](https://myaccount.nytimes.com/auth/login?response_type=cookie&client_id=vi&redirect_uri=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F2025%2F04%2F01%2Fus%2Fpolitics%2Fbooker-senate-trump.html&asset=opttrunc) your Times account, or [subscribe](https://www.nytimes.com/subscription?campaignId=89WYR&redirect_uri=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F2025%2F04%2F01%2Fus%2Fpolitics%2Fbooker-senate-trump.html) for all of The Times. Thank you for your patience while we verify access. Already a subscriber? [Log in](https://myaccount.nytimes.com/auth/login?response_type=cookie&client_id=vi&redirect_uri=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F2025%2F04%2F01%2Fus%2Fpolitics%2Fbooker-senate-trump.html&asset=opttrunc). Want all of The Times? [Subscribe](https://www.nytimes.com/subscription?campaignId=89WYR&redirect_uri=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F2025%2F04%2F01%2Fus%2Fpolitics%2Fbooker-senate-trump.html).

If you check in on any of New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker’s social media pages today, you’ll probably notice that he’s been talking for a while. He’s standing on the Senate floor (occasionally resting against his desk) to criticize the Trump administration’s agenda and the work of Elon Musk’s “Department of Government Efficiency.” He’s also showing his fellow Democrats what it looks like to “do something” when you’re locked out of power in Washington DC. Now well past the 18th hour of a marathon address on the Senate floor, Booker is engaging in a not-quite filibuster — an old congressional tradition. Usually known as a filibuster, these kinds of marathon addresses are a procedural tool. They take advantage of the Senate’s rules that allow for unlimited debate or speaking by a senator unless there have been special limits put in place. Senators recognized by the presiding officer can speak indefinitely, “usually cannot be forced to cede the floor, or even be interrupted”…but “must remain standing and must speak more or less continuously,” according to the [Congressional Research Service](https://www.congress.gov/crs-product/RL30360). But Booker’s address isn’t a filibuster — there’s no legislation that he’s trying to hold up. Instead, it’s a form of political theater and protest against the Trump administration. And it comes at a time when overwhelming shares of his party’s membership think their elected leaders aren’t putting up a tough enough fight to resist Donald Trump’s agenda. About two-thirds of Democratic voters would prefer their leaders “stick to their positions even if this means not getting things done in Washington” a March [NBC News poll](https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/democratic-party-hits-new-polling-low-voters-want-fight-trump-harder-rcna196161) found. This kind of show of political force, at least, has been what top Democrats were saying when warning about Trump on the campaign trail last year. They would prefer congressional leadership use whatever tools they have available to slow down the administration’s work: [One recent poll](https://www.dataforprogress.org/blog/2025/3/28/democratic-voters-are-dissatisfied-with-their-own-party-see-no-clear-party-leader), for example, even found that about three-quarters of Democratic and Democratic-leaning independent voters support the idea of “using procedural tactics like the filibuster to prevent Republican bills from passing.” Still, attention-grabbing moments like these aren’t guaranteed to have staying power. It’s far too early to tell whether Booker is galvanizing a lasting opposition as he might have hoped, or whether this will be drowned out by another Trump story. Still, it’s feeding the Democratic base’s hunger for (any kind of) Trump resistance — as he overruns traditional checks on his power. That’s not easy to do when you’re locked out of power, so Booker’s gamble is yet the latest attempt of Democrats trying to figure out how to fight back. Booker’s speech started on Monday evening, when he announced he would be “speaking as long as he is physically able to lift the voices of Americans who are being harmed and not being heard in this moment of crisis.” “These are not normal times in our nation,” he said. “And they should not be treated as such in the United States Senate.” Since then, he’s only stopped to allow the Senate chaplain to deliver a traditional prayer at noon, and to allow fellow Democratic senators to ask him questions and give him a bit of a rest. Yet he has remained standing, and only taken a couple drinks of water. He’s already entered the top rankings of the longest Senate speeches delivered. (Only one other sitting senator, Republican Ted Cruz of Texas, has delivered a longer address, when trying [unsuccessfully to defund the Affordable Care Act](https://www.cnn.com/2013/09/25/politics/cruz-how-he-did-it/index.html).) This kind of show of political force, at least, has been what top Democrats were saying when warning about Trump on the campaign trail last year. Yet many in the Democratic base have felt like since Trump entered office, their leaders weren’t acting with that kind of urgency. Poll after poll shows that the Democratic rank and file feel adrift, leaderless, and dissatisfied. That fury intensified last month, when Democrats voted for a GOP-brokered spending bill to keep the government open. The thinking at the time was that a shutdown would do more harm than good, but many in the party’s base saw it as an unforgivable cave. Booker’s speech is an attempt to try something else. And whether or not it works, it’s something different. See More:

[Cory Booker](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/cory-booker), the Democratic US senator from New Jersey, has broken the record for longest speech ever by a lone senator – beating the record first established by Strom Thurmond, who filibustered for 24 hours and 18 minutes in opposition to the Civil Rights Act of 1957. Booker’s speech eventually ran to 25 hours and five minutes. Having begun at 7pm on Monday night, was not a filibuster but instead an effort to warn of what he called the “grave and urgent” danger that [Donald Trump](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/donaldtrump)’s presidential administration poses to democracy and the American people. “I rise with the intention of disrupting the normal business of the United States Senate for as long as I am physically able,” Booker said near the start of his speech. “I rise tonight because I believe sincerely that our nation is in crisis.” Booker said that he has heard endless stories of “pain and fear” from constituents who are both Democrats and Republicans due to the [Trump administration](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/trump-administration)’s policies. “Institutions that are special in America, that are unique in our country, are being recklessly – and I would say unconstitutionally – affected, attacked and even shattered,” Booker said. “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 and even our aspirations as a people for, from our highest offices, a sense of common decency. “These are not normal times in America and they should not be treated as such. I can’t allow this body to continue without doing something. The threats to America’s democracy are grave and urgent.” Emphasizing the role Congress should play to hold the executive branch accountable, Booker decried his fellow congressmembers for failing to vote against the president’s cabinet nominees and other policies. “The most powerful man in the world and the richest man in the world have taken a battle axe to the Veterans’ Association, a battle axe to the Department of Education, a battle axe to the only agency solely focused on protecting consumers against big banks and other factors that might abuse them,” he said. “What will we do in this body? What will we do in the House of Representatives? Right now the answer is nothing.” As he approached a full day of speaking, Booker began to stumble slightly in his speech, but was still on his feet, making sweeping gestures as he spoke. Booker evoked the Founding Fathers, Civil Rights leaders and lawmakers who stood up against McCarthyism in his calls for congressmembers to more assertively hold the [Trump administration](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/trump-administration) accountable. Yielding to a question from Connecticut senator Chris Murphy, while retaining the floor, Booker rested a moment while Murphy recounted the longest speech in Senate history, given in 1957 by Republican senator Strom Thurmond to filibuster the Civil Rights Act. “What you have done here today Senator Booker couldn’t be more different than what occurred on this floor in 1957,” he said. “Strom Thurmond was standing in the way of inevitable progress.” He added: “Today, you are standing in the way not of progress but of retreat.” Booker’s speech is not technically a filibuster as he is not trying to run down the Senate’s time to prevent a piece of legislation from passing. Instead, he has used his speaking slot to decry the Trump administration’s spending cuts, its attempt to abolish the Department of Education, the president’s attempts to bypass the judicial system and the removal of people from the US who speak out against the administration. [skip past newsletter promotion](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/apr/01/cory-booker-senate-speech-trump#EmailSignup-skip-link-15) Sign up to This Week in Trumpland A deep dive into the policies, controversies and oddities surrounding the Trump administration **Privacy Notice:** Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our [Privacy Policy](https://www.theguardian.com/help/privacy-policy). We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google [Privacy Policy](https://policies.google.com/privacy) and [Terms of Service](https://policies.google.com/terms) apply. after newsletter promotion Booker’s speech has been supported with reams of quotes from speeches by the late American politicians John McCain and John Lewis, as well as excerpts from newspaper articles. Some of the senator’s fellow [Democrats](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/democrats) have helped support him during his monologues, with several asking questions that have allowed Booker to have a break without yielding the floor. The Democratic Senate minority leader, [Chuck Schumer](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/chuck-schumer), was the first to pose a question to his New Jersey colleague, and he praised Booker for his “strength and conviction”. “You’re taking the floor tonight to bring up all these inequities that will hurt people, that will so hurt the middle class, that will so hurt poor people, that will hurt America, hurt our fiscal conditions, as you document,” Schumer said in his own question to Booker. “Just give us a little inkling of the strength – give us a little feeling for the strength and conviction that drive you to do this unusual taking of the floor for a long time to let the people know how bad these things are going to be.” At one point, Booker spoke about the need for bipartisanship and mentioned a recent dinner he had with Ted Cruz, the arch-conservative Republican senator from Texas. Cruz is no stranger to marathon speeches, having spoken for more than 21 hours in 2013 in an attempt to filibuster an expansion of Medicaid eligibility. At one point, Cruz read from Green Eggs and Ham, the Dr Seuss children’s book. Around his 20th hour of speaking, Booker offered an apology to his fellow Democrats for the current political climate, saying: “I confess that I’ve been inadequate. That the Democrats have been responsible for allowing the rise of this demagogue.”

The liberal judge [Susan Crawford](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/susan-crawford) won the race for a seat on the Wisconsin supreme court on Tuesday in a closely watched election. It is a major win for Democrats who had framed the race as a litmus test for Donald Trump’s and Elon Musk’s popularity. Crawford, from Dane county, defeated Brad Schimel, a former Republican attorney general and conservative judge from Waukesha county, after Musk and groups associated him spent millions to boost his candidacy in what became the [most expensive judicial contest](https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/wisconsin-supreme-court-race-breaks-spending-record-fueled-out-state) in American history. More than $80m was spent on the race, with Musk and affiliated groups spending more than $20m alone. Musk reprised some of the tactics that he used last fall to help Trump win, including offering $100 to people who signed a petition opposing “activist judges” and offering $1m checks to a smaller number of voters. With [more than 84%](https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2025/04/01/us/elections/results-wisconsin-supreme-court.html) of the vote tallied, Susan Crawford led Brad Schimel by nearly 10 percentage points. The result means that liberals will keep a 4-3 ideological majority on the state supreme court. That majority is hugely significant because the court will hear major cases on abortion and collective bargaining rights. The court could also potentially consider cases that could cause the state to redraw its eight congressional districts, which are currently drawn to advantage [Republicans](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/republicans). [Read the full story](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/apr/02/wisconsin-supreme-court-election-result-race) Two [US House of Representatives](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/house-of-representatives) seats in [Florida](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/florida), vacated by cabinet appointees, went to Republicans on Tuesday, dashing Democratic hopes for an upset victory in the first federal special elections held since the president began his second term. Democratic candidates Josh Weil and Gay Valimont were on track to lose the solidly red districts by much smaller margins than the more than 30 points that [Democrats](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/democrats) lost them by in November. Weil put up a [stiff challenge](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/apr/01/wisconsin-florida-voters-elections-trump) in the eastern coastal district formerly represented by Mike Waltz, Trump’s national security adviser, rattling Republicans in a state they have dominated over the past decade. Weil, a Democratic public school teacher, had outraised Fine, a state senator, and a poll had shown them running practically neck-and-neck days before the election. [Read the full story](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/apr/01/republicans-florida-special-elections-results) [Cory Booker](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/cory-booker), the Democratic US senator from New Jersey, has broken the record for longest speech ever by a lone senator – beating the record first established by Strom Thurmond, who spoke for 24 hours and 18 minutes in opposition to the Civil Rights Act of 1957. “I rise with the intention of disrupting the normal business of the United States Senate for as long as I am physically able,” Booker said near the start of his speech. “I rise tonight because I believe sincerely that our nation is in crisis.” He concluded his speech after 25 hours and five minutes. [Read the full story](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/apr/01/cory-booker-senate-speech-trump) Thousands of Health and Human Services employees across the country are being dismissed as the [Trump administration](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/trump-administration) began implementing its controversial workforce reduction plan, which could ultimately remove 10,000 staff from the department through forced layoffs. The job cuts mark the first tangible impact of [health](https://www.theguardian.com/society/health) secretary [Robert F Kennedy Jr](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/robert-f-kennedy-jr)’s departmental overhaul announced last week. [Read the full story](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/apr/01/trump-health-agency-layoffs-cuts) The European Union has a “strong plan” to retaliate against tariffs imposed by Donald Trump but would prefer to negotiate, the head of the European Commission, [Ursula von der Leyen](https://www.theguardian.com/world/ursula-von-der-leyen), has said. Trump, who has upended eight decades of certainties about the transatlantic relationship since taking office, has threatened tariffs on goods from around the world from Wednesday. [Read the full story](https://www.theguardian.com/business/2025/apr/01/eu-has-a-strong-plan-to-retaliate-on-trump-tariffs-says-von-der-leyen) [Elon Musk](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/elon-musk)’s cost-cutting team is finalizing the dismantlement of the US Agency for International Development, ordering the firings of thousands of local workers and US diplomats and civil servants assigned to the agency overseas, two former top USAID officials and a source with knowledge of the situation said on Tuesday. [Read the full story](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/apr/01/musk-doge-usaid-firings) US attorney general Pam Bondi directed federal prosecutors to seek the [death penalty](https://www.theguardian.com/world/capital-punishment) for Luigi Mangione, the man accused of fatally shooting UnitedHealthcare CEO [Brian Thompson](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/brian-thompson-shooting) outside a Manhattan hotel on 4 December. [Read the full story](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/apr/01/luigi-mangione-death-penalty-united-healthcare-brian-thompson-killing) What else happened today: ------------------------- Catching up? _Here’s what happened on **[31 March 2025](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/apr/01/president-trump-administration-news-updates-today)**._

Senator Cory Booker’s staff members described a nagging fear as they worked for a week to fill 15 binders with enough material to cover what would soon become a history-making, 25-hour speech. What if no one listened? Their worry was short-lived. By 11 a.m. on Tuesday, 16 hours after Mr. Booker, Democrat of New Jersey, had begun railing against President Trump’s policies on the floor of the U.S. Senate, roughly 14,000 callers had left messages on his office hotline, aides said. Before he finally stopped speaking, the office had fielded 14,000 more. For 25 hours and five minutes, Mr. Booker, who will turn 56 this month, [did not sit or exit the Senate chambers](https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/01/us/politics/booker-senate-trump.html) to eat or use a bathroom. His speech broke, by nearly an hour, a record set 68 years ago by Senator Strom Thurmond of South Carolina, a segregationist who at the time was trying to block civil rights legislation. Americans noticed. The social-media-savvy senator streamed the speech live on his TikTok account, where it garnered more than 350 million “likes.” And more than 110,000 people were watching on YouTube when Mr. Booker ended his speech in much the same way he began: with an [homage to a mentor](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=stFxmjUy5Y8), the civil rights pioneer John Lewis, a Georgia Democrat who spent three decades in Congress. “Let’s get in good trouble,” he said, borrowing Mr. Lewis’s famous call to action. Many of those watching appeared to revel in Mr. Booker’s stamina and moxie. Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and [log into](https://myaccount.nytimes.com/auth/login?response_type=cookie&client_id=vi&redirect_uri=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F2025%2F04%2F02%2Fnyregion%2Fcory-booker-speech-reactions.html&asset=opttrunc) your Times account, or [subscribe](https://www.nytimes.com/subscription?campaignId=89WYR&redirect_uri=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F2025%2F04%2F02%2Fnyregion%2Fcory-booker-speech-reactions.html) for all of The Times. Thank you for your patience while we verify access. Already a subscriber? [Log in](https://myaccount.nytimes.com/auth/login?response_type=cookie&client_id=vi&redirect_uri=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F2025%2F04%2F02%2Fnyregion%2Fcory-booker-speech-reactions.html&asset=opttrunc). Want all of The Times? [Subscribe](https://www.nytimes.com/subscription?campaignId=89WYR&redirect_uri=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F2025%2F04%2F02%2Fnyregion%2Fcory-booker-speech-reactions.html).

For 25 hours straight, Cory Booker stood on the Senate floor delivering the longest speech in the chamber’s history without stopping to eat, go to the bathroom or even sit down. “It’s an amazing physical feat, absolutely,” said Dr. Santina Wheat, a family medicine doctor at Northwestern Medicine Delnor Hospital in Illinois. It also goes against all the advice she gives her patients about staying hydrated, getting plenty of rest — and, yes, using the bathroom when they need it. Mr. Booker, who started [speaking Monday evening](https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/01/us/politics/booker-senate-trump.html) to condemn the Trump administration and continued to talk until Tuesday night, told reporters that before he started speaking, he had not drunk water since Sunday night, so that he would not have to stop and use the bathroom. He also said that he fasted for days leading up to the speech. “Both the cognitive and physical aspects of his body are definitely taxed,” said Dr. Joseph Herrera, chair of the department of rehabilitation and human performance for the Mount Sinai Health System. “Just to keep going is mentally draining,” he added. Dr. Wheat woke up to a chain of messages from doctor friends speculating about whether Mr. Booker was wearing an adult diaper. (Mr. Booker did not respond to a request for comment, but his communications director [told an NPR reporter](https://x.com/cgrisales/status/1907209971181232508) that the senator was not wearing a catheter or a diaper.) Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and [log into](https://myaccount.nytimes.com/auth/login?response_type=cookie&client_id=vi&redirect_uri=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F2025%2F04%2F02%2Fwell%2Fcory-booker-senate-speech-prep.html&asset=opttrunc) your Times account, or [subscribe](https://www.nytimes.com/subscription?campaignId=89WYR&redirect_uri=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F2025%2F04%2F02%2Fwell%2Fcory-booker-senate-speech-prep.html) for all of The Times. Thank you for your patience while we verify access. Already a subscriber? [Log in](https://myaccount.nytimes.com/auth/login?response_type=cookie&client_id=vi&redirect_uri=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F2025%2F04%2F02%2Fwell%2Fcory-booker-senate-speech-prep.html&asset=opttrunc). Want all of The Times? [Subscribe](https://www.nytimes.com/subscription?campaignId=89WYR&redirect_uri=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F2025%2F04%2F02%2Fwell%2Fcory-booker-senate-speech-prep.html).

Late in “[Mr. Smith Goes to Washington](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bXoF7w6IWAc),” Frank Capra’s 1939 ode to democracy, free speech and the filibuster, a CBS newsman is trilling into his microphone near the Senate chamber. Inside that august room, he tells his listeners, is a man engaging in “the American privilege of free speech in its most dramatic form.” “The rrrrright,” he calls it, rolling that r, “to talk your head off!” He is referring to Jefferson Smith (played by a 30-ish Jimmy Stewart, all big eyes and gee-willikers wonder), the fish-out-of-water junior senator from some unnamed Western state and political party, who’s held the Senate floor all night and is still at it. He’s filibustering an appropriations bill to protest graft and injustice, specifically injustice against himself and more generally against the people of his state, his country and heck, why not, the whole world. I thought of Smith and his idealism while watching [Senator Cory Booker](https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/01/us/politics/booker-senate-trump.html) on Tuesday, 24 hours into his own record-setting speech to protest the actions of the Trump administration. (Technically it wasn’t a filibuster because it did not come during a debate over a specific bill or nominee.) Stewart’s performance is calibrated to heightened Hollywood standards, to be sure, but by the end of the movie’s daylong filibuster, Smith looks as if he’s got the flu: sweaty, haggard, staggering around, voice reduced to a painful rasp. By contrast Booker, who’s about 25 years older than that character, remained coherent and composed and also audible, even when he concluded at the 25-hour mark. Cory Booker emerging from the Senate after his record-setting speech.Credit...Eric Lee/The New York Times In truth, I always think of “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington” (for rent on [Apple TV+](https://tv.apple.com/us/movie/mr-smith-goes-to-washington/umc.cmc.6wip5koqzxj3hmpbtivikxjn4?playableId=tvs.sbd.9001%3A553399350)) when this kind of speech comes up. I saw it dozens of times as a teenager, as it was a favorite in the home-school community to which my family belonged. It’s both very funny and profoundly idealistic, with its underlying belief that anybody who tries a feat this athletic and grueling — as the CBS newsman reminds the crowd, sitting down ends the filibuster — must be in the right. “Either I’m dead right or I’m crazy!” Smith hollers at one point. “You wouldn’t care to put that to a vote, would you, senator?” one of his irritated colleagues replies. We know the movie’s answer. Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and [log into](https://myaccount.nytimes.com/auth/login?response_type=cookie&client_id=vi&redirect_uri=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F2025%2F04%2F02%2Fmovies%2Fcory-booker-speech-mr-smith-goes-to-washington.html&asset=opttrunc) your Times account, or [subscribe](https://www.nytimes.com/subscription?campaignId=89WYR&redirect_uri=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F2025%2F04%2F02%2Fmovies%2Fcory-booker-speech-mr-smith-goes-to-washington.html) for all of The Times. Thank you for your patience while we verify access. Already a subscriber? [Log in](https://myaccount.nytimes.com/auth/login?response_type=cookie&client_id=vi&redirect_uri=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F2025%2F04%2F02%2Fmovies%2Fcory-booker-speech-mr-smith-goes-to-washington.html&asset=opttrunc). Want all of The Times? [Subscribe](https://www.nytimes.com/subscription?campaignId=89WYR&redirect_uri=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F2025%2F04%2F02%2Fmovies%2Fcory-booker-speech-mr-smith-goes-to-washington.html).

[Elon Musk](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/elon-musk)’s polarizing stint slashing and bashing federal bureaucracy will probably soon end, with the world’s richest person’s government service hitting its legal limit in the coming weeks. “He’s got a big company to run … at some point he’s going to be going back,” [Donald Trump](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/donaldtrump) told reporters on Monday. “I’d keep him as long as I could keep him,” the president added. As a special government employee, Musk faces a strict 130-day cap on his service – probably expiring in late May if counted from the day of inauguration, despite earlier White House claims Musk was “[here to stay](https://www.politico.com/news/2025/02/28/elon-musk-doge-work-limit-023375)”. Administration insiders [told Politico](https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2025/04/02/trump-musk-leaving-political-liability-00265784) on Wednesday that Musk would indeed be stepping down from his lead role in the weeks to come. But Musk [called](https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1907519073287635313) the reporting “fake news” and the White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, on Wednesday said the Politico story was “garbage”. “Elon Musk and President Trump have both publicly stated that Elon will depart from public service as a special government employee when his incredible work at Doge is complete,” she said. The White House did not immediately respond to the Guardian’s request for comment. While Musk looks for the exit door, his “department of government efficiency” (Doge) is set to continue until 2026 under Trump’s executive order, and high-level leaders installed by Musk to run agencies throughout the government are likely to outlast the billionaire’s tenure in public service. Doge has operated figuratively – and [one time literally](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/feb/23/cpac-elon-musk) – with a “chainsaw” through government agencies since Musk joined Trump’s team as an unvetted, high-level employee in January. Doge has since triggered large-scale civil service layoffs including about 10,000 people at the Department of Health and Human Services this week alone, while moving to eliminate entire agencies such as humanitarian-focused USAID and the state-backed global media outlet Voice of America. There have been an estimated 56,000 federal jobs cut since 20 January and another 75,000 accepting voluntary buyouts, with at least another 171,000 planned reductions, according to [the New York Times](https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2025/03/28/us/politics/trump-doge-federal-job-cuts.html). The huge cuts have not gone over well, according [to a new poll](https://www.marquette.edu/news-center/2025/marquette-law-school-national-survey-finds-public-skeptical-of-tariffs-inflation-trends-positive-on-nation-s-direction.php) from Marquette Law School, which found that just 41% of the US public approve of Doge’s work, while Musk’s personal likeability was even lower, at 38%. A [mid-March Quinnipiac poll](https://poll.qu.edu/poll-release?releaseid=3921) found that over half the country believed Musk and Doge were harming the US. Doge claims $140bn in savings already – though [eagle-eyed reporters](https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/04/podcasts/the-daily/doge-elon-musk.html) have identified significant errors in these calculations. Musk told Fox News he expected to accomplish “most of the work required to reduce the deficit by $1tn” before his time expires. [ Tesla quarterly sales slump 13% amid backlash against Elon Musk ](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/apr/02/tesla-sales-down-elon-musk) The billionaire’s involvement has raised significant conflict-of-interest concerns given his companies’ extensive government contracts, though as a special government employee, his financial disclosure forms remain confidential. The nearly shuttered USAID had initiated an investigation on agency oversight into Starlink terminals sent to Ukraine, the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau was targeted nearly a week after publishing a rule that would put technology companies such as X – which was planning a partnership with Visa – in its crosshairs over regulation, and many other agency attacks. Democrats have increasingly targeted Musk politically, most recently criticizing his over $20m investment in a Wisconsin supreme court race. The New Jersey senator Cory Booker [broke the record](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/apr/01/cory-booker-senate-speech-trump) for longest speech in Senate floor history after more than 24 hours assailing Trump and Musk.

One of the problems beleaguering political opponents of Donald Trump has been finding a form of protest that, given the scale of his outrages, doesn’t seem entirely futile. You can [parade outside a Tesla showroom](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/mar/29/tesla-protests-elon-musk-doge). You can hold up dumb [little signs](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/mar/05/trump-turns-congress-speech-into-a-sordid-campaign-rally-igniting-a-democrat-fightback) during Trump’s address to Congress inscribed with slogans such as “This is not normal” and “Musk steals”. You can, as Democrats appear to have been doing since the election, play dead. Alternatively, you can go for the ostentatious, performative gesture. On Monday evening, Cory Booker, the Democratic senator for New Jersey who carries himself like someone who’d have been happier in an era when men wore capes, started [speaking on the floor of the Senate](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/apr/01/cory-booker-senate-speech-trump) and carried on for 25 hours and five minutes, breaking the chamber’s record by almost 50 minutes and delivering – finally – a solid, usable symbol of rebellion. This wasn’t a filibuster per se; no legislation was being passed. Booker decided to speak for “as long as I am physically able”, he said, in general protest against Trump and in what he described as a “moral moment” – a claim that, when he ended his speech on Tuesday evening, hoarse of voice and teary-eyed, didn’t seem to me an exaggeration. The power of the filibuster is vested in the iron-man stamina required to perform it: in Booker’s case, standing for longer than a direct flight between Washington DC and Sydney, without food, rest or toilet breaks. It puts him in a category of protest that floats somewhere between a sit-in and a hunger strike, a measure of commitment that demands a kind of default respect, as does the technical challenge of filling the airtime. A few hours into his speech, Booker asked a Senate page to remove his chair and with it the temptation to sit down. Democratic senators were permitted to ask him questions or make short remarks to give him brief respite from speaking. Mostly, however, it was on Booker to keep talking and talking, which he did – it should be noted, quite easily – by enumerating all the terrible things Trump has done in his first three months in office. [](https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/apr/02/cory-brooker-25-hour-speech-donald-trump-democrats#img-2) A supporter outside the US Capitol holds up a sign in support of Cory Booker after his speech. Photograph: Roberto Schmidt/AFP/Getty Images There was something immensely satisfying – cathartic, even – in watching Booker protest against Trump via a form of dissent that, while radical and pushed to its absolute limit, still fell within congressional norms. Part of the fallout from Trump and his cohorts’ behaviour has been the shocking realisation that you can ditch standards and protocols, ignore judges and bin entire social and scientific programmes created by Congress, and, at least in the immediate term, nothing will happen. (In the medium to long term, of course, [people will die](https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2025/feb/04/deaths-predicted-amid-the-chaos-of-elon-musks-shutdown-of-usaid).) It could be argued that Trump’s extraordinary, norm-busting behaviour requires protest that meets it in the extra-political realm. Democrats aren’t going to storm the Capitol, but I have friends who have talked about withholding their federal taxes this tax season. Teslas aren’t only being boycotted but [set on fire](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/mar/18/las-vegas-tesla-fire-fbi-investigation). Beyond the US, Europe is targeting Republican states in particular with [reciprocal tariffs](https://apnews.com/article/trump-eu-tariffs-countermeasures-806a3b9bcc9cd4e45817e672d95f0070#:~:text=The%20EU%20duties,on%20the%20list.) – Alabama beef and soybeans from [Louisiana](https://www.yahoo.com/news/trade-war-may-hurt-louisiana-015355096.html) – to inflict personal economic pain on Trump and his supporters. Still, it is the direct political victories that matter the most. In a ringing blow to Trump this week, the [election of judge Susan Crawford](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/apr/02/first-thing-liberal-judge-beats-musk-backed-candidate-in-wisconsin-supreme-court-race) over her Musk-backed rival for the Wisconsin supreme court – in a race that garnered a huge turnout from voters – highlights the power of boring, process-observant political pushback over more flamboyant gestures. This race was critical in determining the state’s congressional lines, gerrymandered by the Republican-controlled state Senate to favour Republican outcomes. But it also sent a more broadly cheering message: that the involvement of Elon Musk – who, along with affiliated groups, ploughed [more than $20m](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/apr/02/wisconsin-supreme-court-election-result-race#:~:text=Elon%20Musk%20and%20affiliated%20groups%20spent%20more%20than%20%2420m%20alone.) into trying to get Brad Schimel elected – ended up motivating the Democratic vote more emphatically than the Republican. Meanwhile, Booker kept talking. It was telling that, during and after his marathon speech, neither Musk nor Trump acknowledged him on their various social media platforms, although a White House spokesman did derisively refer to Booker’s performance as a “[Spartacus” moment](https://archive.is/pVIhX). Over the course of the 25 hours, people drifted in and out to watch his feat of endurance, while his staff kept his face wipes replenished and placed folders of material before him to read from. To date, the art of the political spectacle has been almost exclusively Trump’s for the taking. It was a relief, finally, to see a Democrat seize and hang on to the mic. * Emma Brockes is a Guardian columnist _**Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our [letters](https://www.theguardian.com/tone/letters) section, please [click here](mailto:[email protected]?body=Please%20include%20your%20name,%20full%20postal%20address%20and%20phone%20number%20with%20your%20letter%20below.%20Letters%20are%20usually%20published%20with%20the%20author%27s%20name%20and%20city/town/village.%20The%20rest%20of%20the%20information%20is%20for%20verification%20only%20and%20to%20contact%20you%20where%20necessary.).**_

 On Monday evening, Sen. Cory Booker stood on the Senate floor and began a speech criticizing the Trump administration. The 55-year-old Democrat from New Jersey kept [talking and talking](https://www.npr.org/2025/04/01/nx-s1-5347318/cory-booker-senate-speech) — through the night and into the next day — for [25 hours and 5 minutes](https://www.booker.senate.gov/news/press/cory-bookers-long-speech-by-the-numbers). He did not sit. He did not eat. He did not use the restroom. "The body is weary in a lot of places, from my back to my feet and to my legs, I'm just feeling it," Booker told _All Things Considered_ host Juana Summers. "But my soul is soaring and I feel very blessed by the whole experience." His effort, which involved dozens of fellow Senate Democrats asking questions to relieve his speaking burden, set a record for the longest speech on record in the chamber. It surpassed the previous record set in 1957 by segregationist [Sen. Strom Thurmond](https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2013/03/07/173736882/how-did-strom-thurmond-last-through-his-24-hour-filibuster), who filibustered for [24 hours and 18 minutes](https://www.senate.gov/about/resources/pdf/thurmond-strom-filibuster-1957.pdf) to oppose the Civil Rights Act. Booker started his speech at 7 p.m. Monday and pledged to use his time to disrupt "the normal business of the United States Senate for as long as I am physically able." "In just 71 days, the president has inflicted harm after harm on Americans' safety, financial stability, the foundations of our democracy and any sense of common decency," he said in his introductory remarks. "These are not normal times in our nation. And they should not be treated as such in the United States Senate." Booker had said his impassioned anti-Trump speech comes at a time when many constituents are questioning the direction of the party. "I think we could not talk about the party and start talking about the people," he told NPR. "I really think that we have got to start having a bolder vision of who we are as a country, not just about who we're against as the other party." When asked for comment on Booker's speech before he set the record, a White House spokesperson issued a statement to several news outlets: "Cory Booker is looking for another 'I am Spartacus' moment, but that didn't work for his failed presidential campaign, and it didn't work to block President Trump's Supreme Court nominee, Brett Kavanaugh. When will he realize he's not Spartacus — he's a spoof?" the spokesperson, Harrison Fields, said in a statement. _This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity._  **Juana Summers:** Democrats and those who oppose President Trump, they've been crying out for your party to do something really to do anything to stand up to the president. And following fiery public rhetoric like yours there in the Senate, how do you harness that momentum and to substantive, real action? **Cory Booker:** Well, I really wanted to as much as possible, and I know that it is what it is. But I tried as much as possible to frame my remarks, not about left or right, but right or wrong, that this was a moral moment because a lot of the policies — and I know this from talking to my Republican colleagues — are not widely agreed upon by either side. And, you know, a lot of things that \[Trump is\] doing that he didn't even run on. And the challenges to American people, whose voices I tried to bring into my speech and read dozens of real Americans from all across the country, especially New Jersey, but on both sides of the political aisle, just really saying that these policies are morally wrong and they're going to hurt people. And so, I hope that perhaps this is one of many ignition points that get people to kind of galvanize and come together and stop him from doing a lot of these things, like we did in 2017, when Americans from all backgrounds were able to stop him, along with three Republican senators from taking away health care for millions of people. **Summers:** I do want to talk about some of the issues that you brought up. You highlighted a number of issues, among them protecting Medicaid, Medicare and Social Security from possible cuts from the Trump administration. Do Democrats and those who want to protect those programs have a plan to actually do so? **Booker:** Well, we know the reality right now. They're going to use a budget process that necessitates no Democratic votes. And since they're in the majority, that process means that we do not have the votes as Democrats alone to stop them. But you hear Republicans, a guy like \[Congressman Thomas\] Massie in the House, who has said very boldly, I will not vote for this because it creates trillions of dollars of new budget obligations, just expands the deficit. And I think appealing to the moral and character and, frankly, principles of the other side that they use. And they say and that's why during the speech, I brought in so many Republican think tanks, Republican voices, Republican governors. And this cannot be a Democratic only win that we're looking for. The only way to win now is by waking up and engaging with people on both sides of the political aisle. And the real reasons to stop this because it makes no fiscal sense to create trillions of dollars of more obligations for our grandchildren. It makes no sense to take money away from programs like Medicaid, all to give tax cuts that disproportionately go to the wealthiest amongst us. That's, I think, most people's sort of principles that violates. **Summers:** You mentioned that Democrats can't go it alone. I don't have to tell you, Republicans hold majority control of the House and the Senate. What have you been hearing from your Republican colleagues in the wake of the speech? **Booker:** I got a lot of hugs from my Republican colleagues. I think people might find that surprising, but a lot of people just appreciated, I think, the fact that it was Strom Thurmond's record, bothered my Republican colleagues as well as Democratic colleagues. And they were happy to see me smash that record, even if they didn't agree with all the points I made during my remarks. Others have said to me, you know, there's a lot of things that I said that they can agree with, even though there's things they disagreed with. So, I've had an experience in this in the Senate getting some big bills done by finding common ground. I think this is a time where the party knows how over the top Donald Trump is. The party knows how demeaning and degrading it can be to people in and out of the party. The party knows that there's problematic things, but now we've got to wake them up to actually do something about it. I quoted \[Martin Luther King Jr.\] last night where he said, what we have to repent for is not the vitriolic words and violent actions of the bad people, but the appalling silence and inaction of the good people."

 When New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker finally said "I yield the floor" on Tuesday night at the end of [the longest Senate speech on record,](https://www.npr.org/2025/04/01/nx-s1-5347318/cory-booker-senate-speech) he had spoken for just over 25 hours. That almost perfectly matches the time Jimmy Stewart's title character is supposed to have spoken in Frank Capra's 1939 classic _Mr. Smith Goes to Washington._ Booker's speech ended with him quoting his former mentor, the late Rep. John Lewis, about getting into "good trouble," and the Senate chamber erupting in cheers. Stewart's ends with him quoting his mentor, fictional Sen. Joseph Payne, but ends less happily — his voice ragged, hair unkempt, eyes bleary, as he collapses to the floor in a dead faint. Stewart, as new senator Jefferson Smith, has been arguing for nothing less than decency and the American way — arguing against "a man who controls a political machine, and controls everything else worth controlling in my state. A man even powerful enough to control congressmen." Asked by one of those congressmen to yield the podium, he shouts, "I will not yield." And he doesn't. He keeps speaking until he can barely give voice to sentiments that were time-honored then, and that remain so today. "There's no place out there for graft, or greed, or lies, or compromise with human liberties," he croaks. "Great principles don't get lost once they come to light. They're right here. You just have to see them again." The Senate wasn't seeing them. Wasn't listening, really. And in the film, the public didn't even get a chance to listen because the corrupt politicians had the press in their pocket, so newspapers wouldn't report on Mr. Smith, or if they did, they distorted what he was saying. And still he kept going. "I guess this is just another lost cause," he says to his onetime mentor, Sen. Payne. Then he turns to the other senators. "All you people don't know about lost causes," he laments. "Mr. Payne does. He said once they were the only causes worth fighting for. And he fought for them once, for the only reason any man ever fights for them. Because of just one plain simple rule: Love Thy Neighbor." I remember learning in my seventh grade civics class about how Congress worked, but I didn't really understand the concept of a filibuster until I saw _Mr. Smith Goes to Washington_. The movie played on TV when I was a kid, and it was clear to me, even then, that filmmaker Capra had made his title character both principled, and naïve. The film's Mr. Smith is right about corruption, but by the time the bad guy's confessing, Smith's passed out on the Senate floor. And the film ends, not with _glory_ for its title idealist, but with chaos, and the president of the Senate smiling smugly to himself. Capra was no fool. He knew one man standing up against the system is just one man. The system will survive. But the standing up — that is what audiences took to heart. _Jennifer Vanasco edited the audio and digital stories. Vincent Acovino mixed the audio._

_Welcome to Best of Late Night, a rundown of the previous night’s highlights that lets you sleep — and lets us get paid to watch comedy. Here are the_ [_50 best movies on Netflix right now_](https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/arts/television/best-movies-on-netflix.html)_._ On Wednesday, [President Donald Trump held an event](https://www.nytimes.com/live/2025/04/02/business/trump-tariffs-liberation-day) at the White House to announce new international tariffs during what he referred to as “Liberation Day.” Stephen Colbert said that, thanks to Trump, “America is finally free from the tyranny of being able to buy stuff from other countries.” > “Who’s ready to learn how to make their own iPad from scratch?” _— STEPHEN COLBERT_ > “Right, ‘Liberation Day. That sounds like the fake holiday your friends make up after you get dumped: ‘No, man. Who needs that beautiful, smart, independently wealthy woman in your life, when you can die alone? This is your liberation day, bro!’” _— MICHAEL KOSTA_ > > “OK, so Liberation Day is just the day that Trump announced new tariffs. I kind of doubt this day will be remembered for all of history, but if you give me a day off from work, you can call it whatever you want.” _— MICHAEL KOSTA_ > > “Now, you might be thinking, ‘What am I even being liberated from? The ability to afford goods and services?’” _— MICHAEL KOSTA_ > > “Reportedly, Trump was still weighing tariff options until late yesterday. Now, if you’re not steeped in the wonky language of Beltway insiders, that basically means they were spitballin’ ideas through the bathroom door at 3 a.m.: ‘_\[imitating Trump\]_ Tell you what: What if Ireland has to pay extra to be, uh — to be on the Lucky Charms box? What about that? I’m just spitballin’ here. We stop Count Chocula at the border.’” _— STEPHEN COLBERT_ > “Yeah, in his speech, Trump said, ‘_\[imitating Trump\]_ We’ll make America wealthy again, like it was at the start of my presidency. Six months ago.’” _— JIMMY FALLON_ > > “Yeah, Trump announced tariffs on aluminum, steel and several other items that popped into his head mid-speech.” _— JIMMY FALLON_ > > “He also expanded the tariffs on aluminum to include canned beer. Even Kid Rock was, like, ‘Um, what are we doing here, man?’” _— JIMMY FALLON_ > > “The tariffs will raise prices for Americans, and costs could go up by $3,000 per year. Netflix was, like, ‘Game recognize game.’” _— JIMMY FALLON_ > “Democratic Senator Cory Booker delivered a 25-hour, four-minute speech yesterday on the Senate floor, shattering Adrien Brody’s record.” _— SETH MEYERS_ > > “That’s right, Senator Cory Booker broke the record last night for the longest speech ever delivered on the Senate floor. The previous record was held by Joe Biden after somebody asked, ‘What was it like growing up in Scranton?’” _— SETH MEYERS_ > > “What an amazing day for Cory Booker. Not so great for the C-SPAN cameraman, who missed the birth of his first child and kindergarten graduation.” _— MICHAEL KOSTA_ > > “After his speech, Booker said he hadn’t eaten since Friday and stopped drinking fluids on Sunday so he wouldn’t have to go to the bathroom. Meanwhile, Bernie Sanders went to the bathroom three different times during this joke.” _— JIMMY FALLON_ Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and [log into](https://myaccount.nytimes.com/auth/login?response_type=cookie&client_id=vi&redirect_uri=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F2025%2F04%2F03%2Farts%2Ftelevision%2Flate-night-trump-tariffs-liberation-day.html&asset=opttrunc) your Times account, or [subscribe](https://www.nytimes.com/subscription?campaignId=89WYR&redirect_uri=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F2025%2F04%2F03%2Farts%2Ftelevision%2Flate-night-trump-tariffs-liberation-day.html) for all of The Times. Thank you for your patience while we verify access. Already a subscriber? [Log in](https://myaccount.nytimes.com/auth/login?response_type=cookie&client_id=vi&redirect_uri=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F2025%2F04%2F03%2Farts%2Ftelevision%2Flate-night-trump-tariffs-liberation-day.html&asset=opttrunc). Want all of The Times? [Subscribe](https://www.nytimes.com/subscription?campaignId=89WYR&redirect_uri=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F2025%2F04%2F03%2Farts%2Ftelevision%2Flate-night-trump-tariffs-liberation-day.html).

On Monday evening, Cory Booker, a Democratic senator for New Jersey, [took the floor](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/apr/02/senator-cory-booker-takes-a-stand-speech-donald-trump-25-hours) to denounce the harm he believes Donald Trump and his administration have inflicted on the United States. “Our country is in crisis,” he said, [decrying](https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/apr/03/cory-booker-speech-transcript-excerpt) the economic chaos, mass layoffs and tyrannical acts of the administration’s first 71 days. He stopped speaking 25 hours and five minutes later, making it the longest Senate speech in history. Many praised Booker for [the rousing political act](https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/apr/02/cory-brooker-25-hour-speech-donald-trump-democrats). Some were also [impressed](https://bsky.app/profile/rexhuppke.bsky.social/post/3llrwy4qcdk2w) by a [particular](https://bsky.app/profile/stormaciousd.bsky.social/post/3llsbphbtwc2r) physical feat: namely, he seemingly didn’t pee once the whole time. (A rep for Booker confirmed to [TMZ](https://www.tmz.com/2025/04/02/cory-booker-not-eat-drink-water-avoid-bathroom-senate-speech/) that he did not wear a diaper during his speech.) Afterwards, Booker told [reporters](https://x.com/mkraju/status/1907231878907822560) that he prepared for the speech by fasting for days and intentionally dehydrating himself. > It’s not a good thing Dr Rena Malik “I think I stopped eating on Friday and then stopped drinking the night before I started on Monday,” Booker said, according to [tweets](https://x.com/mkraju/status/1907235324738117870) from CNN’s chief congressional correspondent, Manu Raju. “It had its benefits and it really had its downsides.” Booker’s speech was a feat of stamina and determination. According to urologists, his no-pee marathon was also deeply unadvisable. “I think \[Booker\] needs to see a urologist,” says Dr Rena Malik, [urologist](https://renamalikmd.com/) and pelvic surgeon. “He probably has some real bladder dysfunction. That’s not normal. A normal person can’t do that.” Most people pee [on average](https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/symptoms/15533-frequent-urination) about seven to eight times a day. And healthy adults typically produce about 800 to 2,000ml – or 0.8 to 2 liters – of urine a day, says Dr Seth D Cohen, a urologist at the Preston Robert Tisch Center for Men’s Health. [](https://www.theguardian.com/wellness/2025/apr/03/how-long-without-peeing-is-bad#img-2) On Monday, Cory Booker spoke for 25 hours and five minutes, making it the longest Senate speech in history. Photograph: Aaron Schwartz/EPA Holding one’s pee for too long can lead to urinary tract infections (UTIs) as well as bladder and kidney damage. “Eventually, the body will contract the bladder involuntarily to empty its contents,” says Cohen. “This is called incontinence.” When urine sits in the bladder for too long (say, about 25 hours and five minutes), it is basically “food for bacteria”, Malik says. Contrary to [popular belief](https://www.sciencenews.org/blog/gory-details/urine-not-sterile-and-neither-rest-you), urine is not sterile, and if not flushed out, it can cause UTIs. Experts also expressed concern over Booker’s decision to dehydrate himself. “Dehydration can have serious consequences, particularly for older adults,” says Dr Bashir Al Hussein Al Awamlh, a urologist at Weill Cornell Medicine and New York Presbyterian. He adds that risks include fatigue, muscle cramps and dizziness when standing up. Indeed, Booker [said](https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/5227988-senator-cory-booker-record-speech/) after his speech that he occasionally took small sips of water “to stop my muscles from cramping”. [skip past newsletter promotion](https://www.theguardian.com/wellness/2025/apr/03/how-long-without-peeing-is-bad#EmailSignup-skip-link-14) Sign up to Well Actually Practical advice, expert insights and answers to your questions about how to live a good life **Privacy Notice:** Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our [Privacy Policy](https://www.theguardian.com/help/privacy-policy). We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google [Privacy Policy](https://policies.google.com/privacy) and [Terms of Service](https://policies.google.com/terms) apply. after newsletter promotion Dehydration is “not recommended”, says Al Hussein Al Awamlh. While some people may limit their fluid intake when they will not have easy bathroom access, “it’s more effective to stay hydrated overall and avoid caffeine and alcohol, which act as diuretics and can increase the urge to urinate”. Besides, dehydrating yourself doesn’t prevent your body from producing urine. “You’re still processing bodily fluids,” says Malik. Additionally, when one is dehydrated, urine typically becomes more concentrated, and this highly concentrated urine can irritate the bladder lining, Malik says. Booker’s speech was not a filibuster – a procedure by which senators attempt to delay or block a vote by speaking indefinitely. During a filibuster, senators can’t sit down or go to the bathroom, as that would be [yielding](https://rollcall.com/2016/06/15/the-dos-and-donts-of-a-filibuster/) the floor. (“These rules are not medically safe and need to be evaluated by a medical doctor,” Malik says.) While not a filibuster, it was a piece of political theater, and Booker followed most filibuster rules, [saying](https://www.cnn.com/2025/03/31/politics/booker-senate-floor-speech-trump-protest/index.html) he rose with the “intention of disrupting the normal business of the United States Senate for as long as I am physically able”. As he neared the end of his speech, Booker [said](https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/clyq24388ppo) he would be leaving to “deal with some of the biological urgencies I’m feeling”. Democrats praised Booker for his speech. “Do you know how proud America is of you?” the Senate minority leader, Chuck Schumer, asked Booker. Urologists were less delighted by the gesture. “While it’s possible to delay urination with careful planning, doing so repeatedly – or for symbolic reasons – can send the wrong message about listening to your body’s needs,” says Dr Jason Kim, associate professor of urology at Stony Brook Medicine. People should not aspire to go 25 hours without peeing, says Malik. “It’s not a good thing,” she said, reiterating: “Cory Booker needs a urologist.”

_Editor’s note: the following is an excerpt from [Cory Booker’s 25-hour marathon speech](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/apr/02/senator-cory-booker-takes-a-stand-speech-donald-trump-25-hours) on the US Senate floor_ 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. And I believe that not in a partisan sense, because so many of the people that have been reaching out to my office – in pain, in fear, having their lives upended – so many of them identify themselves as Republicans. Indeed, conversations from in this body, to in this building, to across my state – and recently in travel across the country – Republicans as well as Democrats are talking to me about what they feel as a sense of dread about a growing crisis, or what they point to about what is going wrong. The 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, even shattered. 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, 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. John Lewis – so many heroes before us – would say that this is the time to stand up, to speak up. This is the time to get in some good trouble, to get into necessary trouble. I can’t allow this body to continue without doing something different – speaking out. The threats to the American people and American democracy are grave and urgent. And we all must do more. We all must do more against them. But those 10 words: “If it is to be, it is up to me.” All of us have to think of those 10 words – 10 two-letter words: “If it is to be, it is up to me.” Because I believe generations from now will look back at this moment and have a single question: “Where were you? Where were you when our country was in crisis and when American people were asking for help? Help me. Help me.” Did we speak up? When 73 million American seniors, who rely on social security, were to have that promise mocked, attacked, and then to have the services undermined – to be told that there will be no one there to answer if you call for help – when our seniors became afraid and worried and panicked because of the menacing words of their president, of the most wealthy person in the world, of cabinet secretaries … Did we speak up? When the American economy, in 71 days – 71 days – has been upended, when prices at the grocery store were skyrocketing, and the stock market was plunging, when pension funds, 401(k)s, were going down, when Americans were hurting and looking up, where the resounding answer to this question was: “No.” Are you better off economically than you were 71 days ago? Where were you? Did you speak up? At a time when the president of the United States was launching trade wars against our closest allies, when he was firing regulators who investigate America’s biggest banks and biggest corporations – and stop them from taking advantage of the little guy, or the little gal, or my grandmother, or your grandfather – dismantling the agency that protects consumers from fraud, the only one whose sole purpose is to look out for them … Did you speak up? When the president of the United States, in a way that is so crass and craven, peddled his own meme coin and made millions upon millions upon millions of dollars for his own bank account – at a time so many are struggling economically – did you speak up? Did you speak up when the president of the United States did what amounts to a conman’s house – the White House – when the president tried to take healthcare away? Where were you? Did you speak up? Threatening a program called Medicaid, which helps people with disabilities, helps expectant mothers, helps millions upon millions of Americans – and why? Why? As part of a larger plan to pay for tax cuts for the wealthiest among us, who’ve done the best over the last 20 years. For billionaires who seem so close to the president that they sat right on the dais at his inauguration and sit in his cabinet meetings at the White House. [skip past newsletter promotion](https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/apr/03/cory-booker-speech-transcript-excerpt#EmailSignup-skip-link-19) Sign up to This Week in Trumpland A deep dive into the policies, controversies and oddities surrounding the Trump administration **Privacy Notice:** Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our [Privacy Policy](https://www.theguardian.com/help/privacy-policy). We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google [Privacy Policy](https://policies.google.com/privacy) and [Terms of Service](https://policies.google.com/terms) apply. after newsletter promotion Did you speak up when he gutted public education, slashed funds for pediatric cancer research, fired thousands of veterans who risked their lives for their country? When he abandoned our allies and our international commitments? At a time when floods, fires, hurricanes and droughts are devastating communities across this country – when countries all around the world are banding together to do something – and he turned his back? Did you speak up when outbreaks of dangerous infectious diseases are still a global threat, yet we have stopped engaging in the efforts necessary to meet those threats? Where were you when the American press was being censored? When international students were being disappeared from American streets without due process? When American universities were being intimidated into silence, challenging that fundamental idea of freedom of thought, freedom of expression? When the law firms that represent clients that may not be favored were attacked, and attacked, and attacked – where were you? Did you speak up when they came for those firms? Or what about when the people who attacked the police officers – defended this building, an American democracy – on January 6, who just outside those doors put their lives on the line for us, and many of them would later die … Where were you when the president pardoned them, celebrated them, and even talked of giving them money – people who savagely beat American police officers? Did you speak up when Americans from across the country were all speaking up – more and more voices in this country speaking up – saying: “This is not right. This is un-American. This is not who we are. This is not America.” Did you speak up? And so I rise tonight because I believe to be about what is normal right now, when so much abnormal is happening, is unacceptable. I rise tonight because silence at this moment of national crisis would be a betrayal of some of the greatest heroes of our nation. Because at stake in this moment is nothing less than everything that we brag about, that we talk about, that makes us special. At stake right now are some of our most basic American principles – principles that so many Americans understand are worth fighting for, worth standing for, worth speaking up for. * Cory Booker is a US senator from New Jersey

 Sen. Cory Booker's impassioned oration against the policies of President Trump's administration — with the help of multiple fellow Democrats — didn't just break the record for the longest Senate floor speech in history. It also renewed a spotlight on a time-honored tradition. The New Jersey Democrat spent a consecutive 25 hours and 5 minutes [standing and speaking](https://www.npr.org/2025/04/01/nx-s1-5347318/cory-booker-senate-speech) at the podium Monday night into Tuesday, captivating [hundreds of thousands](https://www.booker.senate.gov/news/press/cory-bookers-long-speech-by-the-numbers) of viewers and sending [Google searches](https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=now%207-d&geo=US&q=filibuster) skyrocketing for the word "filibuster." The catch? While no less impressive, Booker's efforts didn't technically constitute a filibuster, since he wasn't seeking to block a specific bill or nomination. The term refers to action "designed to prolong debate and delay or prevent a vote on a bill, resolution, amendment, or other debatable question," according to the [U.S. Senate](https://www.senate.gov/about/powers-procedures/filibusters-cloture.htm). "That can have an effect of just raising attention for the issue that the senator is talking about … or it can be a means to literally give more time for senators to have the backroom conversations to dilute the bill that is for some reason objectionable to the senator," explains Casey Burgat, Legislative Affairs Program Director at George Washington University's Graduate School of Political Management. The delay tactic is as old as the Senate itself, where the rules permit unlimited debate. It has been used prolifically — and controversially — throughout the decades, including when then-Democrat Strom Thurmond filibustered the Civil Rights Act of 1957 for over 24 hours, setting the record that Booker broke this week. Booker's speech has, ironically, put the filibuster in focus. And while the act itself may be considered dull, the word's history and use over time are anything but. NPR's first installment of _Word of the Week_ traces its evolution, from swashbuckling to stonewalling. ### Where did the word come from?  "Filibuster" was originally used to describe an unauthorized military adventurer, specifically "an American engaged in fomenting insurrections in Latin America in the mid-19th century," [according to Merriam-Webster](https://www.merriam-webster.com/wordplay/filibuster-word-history-origin). It comes directly from the Spanish word "filibustero," which translates to freebooter or pirate. When the word first arrived in English in the 1840s, it was used to describe [Americans who went to foreign countries](https://daily.jstor.org/filibuster-doesnt-mean-what-you-think-it-does/) to fight in their wars without the U.S. government's permission. But before long it moved to the political sphere, where it became shorthand for stalling senators. The practice of delaying legislation by giving long speeches dates back to the very first session of the Senate in 1789, [the chamber says](https://www.senate.gov/about/powers-procedures/filibusters-cloture/overview.htm), but it wasn't until the 1850s that it became commonplace enough to earn its colorful name. It first appeared in Congress as a metaphor, after one debate got so long it seemed to be disrupting government business. The implication was that filibustering [lawmakers were pirates](https://www.npr.org/2005/05/18/4656990/history-of-the-word-filibuster), raiding the institution for their own political gain. The term caught on quickly in the debate-friendly Senate, [as NPR has reported](https://www.npr.org/2016/06/15/482224176/senate-gun-control-speeches-recall-an-old-school-filibuster). In January 1853, for example, Mississippi Democrat Albert Brown commented, "I saw my friend standing on the other side of the House filibustering." "A month later, North Carolina senator George Badger complained of 'filibustering speeches,' and the term became a permanent part of our political lexicon," reads the U.S. Senate website. By the 1870s, the filibuster had become both a fixture of the political process and a noun — though it was initially applied to the person who gave the speeches, rather than the act of speaking itself, Merriam-Webster says. ### How has the word been used over time? The filibuster — a marathon speech by a small group of senators or an enterprising individual — has been immortalized in popular culture, in large part thanks to Frank Capra's 1939 film [_Mr. Smith Goes to Washington_](https://www.npr.org/2025/04/02/nx-s1-5347382/cory-booker-senate-speech-mr-smith-goes-to-washington)_._ In the movie, idealist freshman Sen. Jefferson Smith (played by James Stewart) finds himself at odds with a corrupt political machine, whose leaders try to destroy his reputation when he attempts to expose them. In the climax of the film, he stages a [one-man filibuster](https://www.senate.gov/about/powers-procedures/filibusters-cloture/mr-smith-comes-to-washington.htm#) to proclaim his innocence, which ran over 23 hours and ended only after he collapsed in exhaustion on the Senate floor. "We have this big conception in our head, at least the public does, of what a filibuster is, of the _Mr. Smith Goes to Washington_ … standing on your principles-type of senatorial behavior," Burgat told NPR. "But that's increasingly rare in the Senate, where the filibuster is not used all that often." There have been some famous filibusters in the real-life Senate, like a [1917 speech](https://www.senate.gov/about/powers-procedures/filibusters-cloture/lafollette-free-speech-wartime.htm) in which Wisconsin Sen. Robert La Follette opposed U.S. entry into World War I and nearly hurled a spittoon at the presiding officer after losing his temper. In 1953, Sen. Wayne Morse of Oregon protested against the Submerged Lands Act for 22 hours and 26 minutes — now the third-longest such speech in history, according to the Senate Historical Office, thanks to Booker's new record.  Thurmond — who held the record for almost seven decades — was one of many southern Democrats who used the filibuster to successfully delay the passage of civil rights legislation by about a decade in the mid-20th century, says Burgat. "\[The Civil Rights Era\] seems to be the historical peak," he said. "And then we transitioned into an era of the silent or assumed filibusters, as these margins got closer and closer." In today's era of partisanship and small majorities, he says, senators who are opposed to pieces of legislation don't necessarily need to actually make a big speech on the floor. Because 60 votes are required to cut off debate ([known as cloture](https://www.senate.gov/about/powers-procedures/filibusters-cloture/overview.htm)) — and effectively, pass a law — if a group of 41 or more senators simply threatens a filibuster, the Senate majority leader can just refuse to call a vote, the [Brennan Center for Justice](https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/filibuster-explained) explains. "And then that filibuster comes off the Senate floor and is actually silent in that they don't have to hold the floor, stand up and recite _Green Eggs and Ham_," Burgat explains, nodding to the fact that senators often [read books or speeches aloud](https://www.npr.org/2013/03/07/173733689/famous-filibusters-throughout-history) to pass the time while filibustering. "It's really just assumed, and the majority doesn't even make them go through that process … because they would rather process other senatorial business." That's not to say there haven't been filibusters — or Booker-style long, public speeches — on the Senate in recent years. Some standouts include a nearly 15-hour [filibuster by Sen. Chris Murphy](https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/06/15/482182468/live-video-democrats-to-hold-floor-indefinitely-in-push-for-gun-control), D-Conn., for gun control legislation in 2016, and a more than [21-hour effort by Sen. Ted Cruz](https://www.npr.org/sections/itsallpolitics/2013/09/25/226190945/a-tale-of-two-talks-ted-cruz-outlasts-rand-paul-by-8-hours), R-Texas, to defund the Affordable Care Act in 2013. ### Why does the word matter today?  In recent years, talk of reforming the filibuster has been almost as widespread as the practice itself. The Senate has changed the rules of filibustering several times over the decades, like reducing the number of votes required for cloture in 1975 and allowing a simple majority to end debate on nominations in the 2010s. Critics of the filibuster point to its racist past — former President Barack Obama called it a ["Jim Crow relic"](https://www.npr.org/2021/03/30/982411563/in-push-to-end-filibuster-democrats-point-to-its-civil-rights-era-history) — and impact on productivity. Some politicians have proposed further changes or eliminating it altogether. "The critiques are often convenient politically, in that: I hate it when I'm in the majority and it's stalling me, I love it when I'm in the minority and I need to do the stalling," Burgat says, though he predicts the filibuster is likely to undergo changes eventually. Former President Joe Biden [said in 2022](https://www.npr.org/2022/01/11/1071829164/biden-speech-voting-rights-filibuster-senate) that he supported scrapping the filibuster in order to codify abortion and voting rights, for example. While many Democrats were on board then, Burgat says they are likely grateful for the filibuster now, with a Republican-controlled Congress and White House. Burgat considers Booker's use of the right to unlimited debate, in full public view, as a boon for democracy at a time when [trust in institutions](https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2024/06/24/public-trust-in-government-1958-2024/) is historically low. "Though it didn't stall any piece of legislation, he got the conversation he was after. And to me, that's the senator's job," he said. He says part of the reason that we don't see such speeches very often these days is because of how physically taxing it is to stay upright and talking — without leaving for a bathroom break — for so long. A hoarse Booker, by the way, told reporters afterward that he had cut out food and water long before he took the podium. Still, Burgat is surprised that more senators haven't tried to take advantage of the opportunity to go viral — and says Booker's speech could potentially inspire others to do the same. "I want them talking to each other, even if they're fundamentally disagreeing with each other. That's how it's supposed to work," he says.

 This week inspired questions of self-reflection, like "could I talk for [25 hours straight](https://www.npr.org/2025/04/02/nx-s1-5349429/sen-cory-booker-on-his-marathon-25-hour-speech-on-the-senate-floor)?" and "do I feel [liberated](https://www.npr.org/2025/04/02/nx-s1-5345802/trump-tariffs-liberation-day)?" and "can you tell me again why the [Wisconsin Supreme Court](https://www.npr.org/2025/04/01/nx-s1-5345862/wisconsin-supreme-court-crawford-schimel-election-results) is important?" We have no insight into your psyche, but we do have 11 questions that you'll need to get right for a perfect score.

 A lot happened this week, and NPR has you covered. Catch up on the big news and culture moments you might have missed. [We spoke to Sen. Cory Booker after his record-breaking speech](https://www.npr.org/2025/04/02/nx-s1-5349429/sen-cory-booker-on-his-marathon-25-hour-speech-on-the-senate-floor) on the Senate floor; [Elizabeth Olsen played a game of Wild Card](https://www.npr.org/2025/04/03/nx-s1-5349400/wild-card-elizabeth-olsen-interview-wandavision-the-assessment) and opened up about something she feels she still needs to prove; and we spoke to several experts on the things that matter most, whether that's [how to reduce screen time](https://www.wbur.org/hereandnow/2025/04/03/how-to-reduce-screen-time) or how [women may have to pay more in the tariff wars](https://www.npr.org/2025/04/02/1263527069/trump-tariffs-fast-fashion-underconsumption). On Monday evening, Sen. Cory Booker stood on the Senate floor and began a speech criticizing the Trump administration. The New Jersey Democrat kept [talking and talking](https://www.npr.org/2025/04/01/nx-s1-5347318/cory-booker-senate-speech) — through the night and into the next day — for [25 hours and 5 minutes](https://www.booker.senate.gov/news/press/cory-bookers-long-speech-by-the-numbers). His effort, which involved dozens of fellow Senate Democrats asking questions to relieve his speaking burden, set a record for the longest speech on record in the chamber. It surpassed the previous record set in 1957 by segregationist [Sen. Strom Thurmond](https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2013/03/07/173736882/how-did-strom-thurmond-last-through-his-24-hour-filibuster), who filibustered for [24 hours and 18 minutes](https://www.senate.gov/about/resources/pdf/thurmond-strom-filibuster-1957.pdf) to oppose the Civil Rights Act. [He spoke to _All Things Considered_ after the speech.](https://www.npr.org/2025/04/02/nx-s1-5349429/sen-cory-booker-on-his-marathon-25-hour-speech-on-the-senate-floor) Republican Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin has concerns about President Trump's [new tariffs](https://www.npr.org/2025/04/02/nx-s1-5345802/trump-tariffs-liberation-day), but he is not surprised by the move. Morning Edition [spoke with Johnson](https://www.npr.org/2025/04/03/nx-s1-5349445/liberation-day-trump-tariffs-reactions) about the impact of the new round of tariffs imposed by the Trump administration. Canadian actress and entrepreneur Jasmine Mooney was detained by immigration authorities for 12 days after trying to apply for a visa at the U.S.-Mexico border. [She spoke to NPR about her experience.](https://www.npr.org/2025/04/02/nx-s1-5341465/jasmine-mooney-canadian-actress-ice-detention) You might know Elizabeth Olsen from the Marvel Cinematic Universe's the Scarlet Witch in _WandaVision_, or her performance in the Netflix show [_Love and Death_](https://youtu.be/-R6_ilH7dNs). [Her newest film is called _The Assessment_](https://www.npr.org/2025/04/03/nx-s1-5349400/wild-card-elizabeth-olsen-interview-wandavision-the-assessment), and in it, Elizabeth plays a woman in the not-so-distant future, living in some kind of protected society because the Earth has been destroyed, and she's got to pass this nightmare of a test in order to be granted the chance to have a baby. Protests against Tesla and its CEO Elon Musk took place across the country over the weekend and [are spreading globally](https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-tesla-takedown-protests-boycott-doge-global-photos-2025-3). The Tesla Takedown movement is urging people to sell their Tesla cars and stock. _Morning Edition_ [spoke with branding expert Allen Adamson about Tesla's struggles](https://www.npr.org/2025/03/31/nx-s1-5339818/tesla-brand-elon-musk), which he attributes to several factors: Musk's lack of focus on the company and innovation, the brand's shifting public perception and the increasing role of politics in consumer decisions. [On _Adolescence_ and a "very difficult age"](https://www.npr.org/2025/03/31/nx-s1-5345097/adolescence-netflix-stephen-graham) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ The Netflix miniseries _Adolescence_ tells the haunting story of a 13-year-old boy named Jamie who is arrested for the murder of a girl from his school. Though the series is fictional, Stephen Graham, who co-created the show and also stars as Jamie's father Eddie, says it draws on similar crimes that happened in Great Britain in recent years.  [Jason Isbell sings about his split from fellow musician Amanda Shires](https://www.npr.org/2025/04/03/nx-s1-5345807/jason-isbell-foxes-in-the-snow) on his latest album _Foxes in the Snow_. "What I was attempting to do is document a very specific time where I was going through a lot of changes," he says. Former Costa Rican President Óscar Arias Sánchez, who likened President Trump to "Roman emperor" earlier this year, says he fears the U.S. revoked his visa over criticisms of Trump. All of that scrolling, texting and posting [can take a toll on your mental health and release stress hormones](https://www.wbur.org/hereandnow/2025/04/03/how-to-reduce-screen-time). The human mind has always been able to take in and process a lot of information. But dependence on smartphones can lead to an overload, says Larry Rosen, professor emeritus at California State University Dominguez Hills. [Read or listen to the full interview on Here & Now.](https://www.wbur.org/hereandnow/2025/04/03/how-to-reduce-screen-time)  In _Death of a Unicorn,_ actors Paul Rudd and Jenna Ortega play a father and daughter driving deep into the wilderness when they hit a unicorn. Thoughtful, but gruesome is an apt descriptor for the film as well. As it turns out, hitting a unicorn isn't quite like hitting a squirrel. The unicorns in this film are a lot more vengeful and organized. What starts out as a dark comedy turns into a unicorn gore-fest. At the beginning of the year, we talked about how No-Buy January, buying secondhand and mending old clothes seemed to be taking hold amongst some of the most popular influencers — even though the guiding principle of underconsumption is something we've been doing for a long time. Then, President Trump started implementing tariffs on [China, Mexico and Canada](https://www.whitehouse.gov/fact-sheets/2025/02/fact-sheet-president-donald-j-trump-imposes-tariffs-on-imports-from-canada-mexico-and-china/) — and now even the [European Union](https://www.politico.com/news/2025/03/26/eu-readying-for-flat-double-digit-tariff-on-april-2-00004836). That made us think: How would fast fashion be affected by this? And would underconsumption move from a hashtag to a lifestyle? To find out, _The Indicator_'s Wailin Wong joins It's Been A Minute to [break down how tariffs will affect Americans who love to shop](https://www.npr.org/2025/04/02/1263527069/trump-tariffs-fast-fashion-underconsumption) ... when the prices drop. The latest round of tariffs Trump announced Wednesday include a minimum 10% tariff on all [U.S.](http://u.s./) imports from other countries. Separate 25% tariffs on cars and car parts are also now in effect. Canada and Mexico were not hit with any additional tariffs. [Read or listen to the interview on Here & Now.](https://www.wbur.org/hereandnow/2025/04/03/trump-tariffs-mayors) Hungry for more? Check out the [NPR App](https://www.npr.org/app) for more great interviews, the latest news, music and our favorite podcasts from across the NPR Network.

Seven and three-quarters hours into his 25-hour [speech](https://www.rev.com/transcripts/cory-booker-historic-senate-speech-part-1) on the Senate floor, the New Jersey Democrat Cory Booker uttered the word “Gaza”. He was not talking about the war. He stepped nowhere near the 50,000 Palestinians killed by the Israeli armed forces since 8 October 2023, or the US’s military and political support of the genocide. Rather, Booker was searching for a particularly ludicrous lie from a presidential administration that has told thousands. “There are lies about USAID, like, I don’t know, 5 million condoms going to Gaza or something outrageous,” he said. Considering the other outrageous things Trump has said about Gaza – such as his plan [to “clean out”](https://www.cnn.com/2025/01/25/politics/trump-gaza-strip-jordan-egypt/index.html) the strip to make room for luxury resorts – the remark felt trivializing. The word “Gaza” came up once more, when the senator mentioned his “humanitarian and peace-building work” with the UN there. It was not until hour 13, more than halfway through his oratorial marathon, that Booker engaged at any length with the subject of Israel and Palestine. This time it was not about the war, either. Instead, he was condemning the Trump administration’s attacks on free speech at universities and its summary deportation of legally resident foreign students who “espouse certain views on topics like Israel and Palestine”. The senator recounted the abduction of Rumeysa Ozturk, the Turkish Tufts University graduate student who was surrounded on the street by masked plainclothes agents, handcuffed and hustled into an unmarked vehicle, then shipped to a hellish Louisiana detention center, where she faces deportation – all apparently because she co-wrote an op-ed in the student newspaper urging the college to divest from [Israel](https://www.theguardian.com/world/israel). “Her arrest,” said Booker, “looks like a kidnapping that you might expect to see in Moscow rather than in the streets of Boston.” True. Denouncing censorship, the senator self-censored. “Certain views on topics”: he neglected to specify which views. He didn’t say that punishment is being meted out exclusively to critics of Israel and never to its supporters, or that those supporters are [supplying homeland security](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/mar/14/israel-betar-deportation-list-trump) with the names of the critics – in other words, collaborating in the very violations of constitutional rights that he decries. The atrocities Israel has been committing in Gaza since the temporary ceasefire collapsed are arguably the worst yet. Trump is cheering Bibi on like a fan at a wrestling match. His support of Israel’s policies is not only unconsciously racist, like Biden’s, but blatantly racist. Yet few Democrats are saying – or, more importantly, doing – anything to stop him. In fact, a few days after the speech, Booker voted against [Bernie Sanders’ resolutions](https://www.axios.com/2025/04/03/senate-democrats-cancel-military-aid-israel) to block $8.8bn in arms sales to the Netanyahu government. Only 14 of his colleagues voted in favor. > Antiwar activists are having a hard time catching anyone’s eyes – including the eyes of those who are sympathetic to their cause Perhaps senators are hoping their constituents won’t notice their inaction. Indeed, as the mudslide of executive orders buries immigrants, federal workers, transgender people, science, regulation, the economy, the rule of law and US democracy, it is hard for the press, or anyone else, to take their eyes off what is going on at home. Even when horrors are taking place abroad. Especially if they’re taking place in Palestine. For example: senior national security officials discussed classified military operations on the commercial message app Signal and inadvertently included a reporter on the call. The super-blunder got a name, and [Signalgate](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/signal-group-chat-leak) was all over the news. But on the subject of that discussion – US airstrikes on Houthi militants in Yemen – virtual silence. Only the most tuned-in of US news hounds know who the Houthis are, let alone why we might bomb them: [their attacks on ships in the Red Sea](https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/3/12/yemens-houthis-to-resume-shipping-attacks-over-gaza-aid-cutoff), perpetrated in support of the Palestinians. Was the US strike a good idea? Was it consonant with the US’s Middle East strategy – if there is a Middle East strategy? Do the Houthis pose a threat to national security? Is the Yemen bombing an escalation of US involvement in the Gaza war? Don’t ask the mainstream media. Fixated on the incompetence of Trump’s cabinet and the president’s laid-back attitude toward classified information, Signalgate turned a military aggression in a country against which we have not declared war into a domestic story – about Trump. As in Booker’s speech, as last spring, when university administrators called in the police to break up student Palestine-solidarity encampments, the press focused narrowly on individual Americans’ acts in relation to a response to the war in Gaza, rather than on the war itself. Antiwar activists are having a hard time catching anyone’s eyes – including the eyes of those who are sympathetic to their cause. This Saturday, at opposite ends of the National Mall in Washington, two demonstrations occurred simultaneously: the [Emergency March for Palestine](https://marchforpalestine.org/) and the much larger Hands Off rally, one of about 1,500 taking place nationwide. At the former event, a ribbon-like white banner inscribed with the names of the Palestinian dead flowed from hand to hand above the heads of the participants, drawing the crowd together like a seam stretching into the distance. Solemn, elegant, a symbol of the interminable war and the immensity of its damage, it was the kind of mediagenic political spectacle that deserved to be broadcast widely, at least at the end of the newscast. But it can be viewed only on [social media](https://www.instagram.com/eye.on.palestine/reel/DIFCLT7KpFc/?locale=ar-en&hl=en). Why did these two events happen at the same time anyway? Was there no communication between Indivisible and the other Hands Off organizers and the groups, including Jewish Voice for Peace and the Palestinian Youth Movement, that planned the Palestine action? Did Indivisible consider the war too divisive for an action seeking to attract everyone from socialists to Republicans worried about their 401ks? Or was Trump’s stance on Israel not on the bill of indictments against him? What the Trump administration is doing to the US and what he is eagerly helping Netanyahu to do to the Palestinians are of a piece. Both are criminal, immoral campaigns against domestic and international law, causing immense suffering. Yes, it’s exhausting to contend with two major catastrophes at once. But we don’t have the time or the privilege to put either one aside. * Judith Levine is a Brooklyn journalist and essayist, a contributing writer to the Intercept and the author of five books. Her Substack, Today in Fascism, is at [judithlevine.substack.com](https://judithlevine.substack.com/)

Cory Booker plans to travel to [El Salvador](https://www.theguardian.com/world/el-salvador), a source familiar with the New Jersey senator’s itinerary said, as Democrats seek to pressure the [Trump administration](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/trump-administration) to return a wrongly deported Maryland resident. Booker’s trip to the Central American country would come after the Maryland senator Chris Van Hollen traveled there this week to meet with his constituent [Kilmar Ábrego García](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/apr/16/who-is-kilmar-abrego-garcia), a Salvadorian national deported last month in what the Trump administration acknowledged was an “administrative error”. Despite a supreme court ruling saying his administration must “facilitate” Ábrego García’s return, Trump has refused to take steps to do so, and El Salvador’s government on Wednesday [denied Van Hollen a meeting](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/apr/16/kilmar-abrego-garcia-chris-van-hollen) with the deportee. Ábrego García’s case has become a rallying cry for Democrats, who argue it is a sign of [Donald Trump](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/donaldtrump)’s reckless approach to immigration enforcement and willingness to defy court orders. An immigration judge in 2019 had given Ábrego García protection from deportation, finding that he may face retaliation if he returns to El Salvador. Booker wrote on X earlier this week: “The Supreme Court was clear: the [Trump administration](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/trump-administration) must act to facilitate the return of Kilmar Ábrego García to the United States. There is no room for debate – yet Trump is refusing, in defiance of a lawful court order. “Every member of Congress should be standing up for the Constitution and demanding that the administration act to return Mr. Ábrego García to the U.S. and to his family.” Trump administration officials have countered by accusing Democrats of caring more about undocumented immigrants than US citizens. On Monday, the Republican congressman Riley Moore toured El Salvador’s Terrorism Confinement Center (Cecot), where US authorities say Ábrego García is being held, and gave a thumbs up in front of a cell packed with inmates. Several other Democratic lawmakers have signaled they would like to visit El Salvador and Cecot, including Adriano Espaillat, chair of the Congressional Hispanic caucus, and Robert Garcia, Yassamin Ansari and Maxwell Alejandro Frost, all members of the investigative House oversight committee. Delia Ramirez of the House homeland security committee has also asked for a visit to Cecot. [skip past newsletter promotion](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/apr/17/cory-booker-trump-garcia-deportation-el-salvador#EmailSignup-skip-link-8) Sign up to This Week in Trumpland A deep dive into the policies, controversies and oddities surrounding the Trump administration **Privacy Notice:** Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our [Privacy Policy](https://www.theguardian.com/help/privacy-policy). We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google [Privacy Policy](https://policies.google.com/privacy) and [Terms of Service](https://policies.google.com/terms) apply. after newsletter promotion Booker, who ran for president in 2020 and is viewed as a potential candidate again three years from now, has been particularly outspoken against Trump. Earlier this month, he delivered a speech from the Senate floor warning of the “grave and urgent” danger presented by his presidency that ran for 25 hours and five minutes – [the longest such speech ever](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/apr/01/cory-booker-senate-speech-trump).

House minority leader [Hakeem Jeffries](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/hakeem-jeffries) and New Jersey senator [Cory Booker](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/cory-booker) were holding a sit-in protest and discussion on Sunday on the steps of the US Capitol in opposition to [Republicans](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/republicans)’ proposed budget plan. Billed as an “Urgent Conversation with the American People”, [the livestreamed discussion](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ceR90lihX8) comes before Congress’s return to session on Monday, where Democrats hope to stall Republicans’ economic legislative agenda. Throughout the day, they were joined by other Democratic lawmakers, including the senator Raphael Warnock, [who spoke](https://x.com/Acyn/status/1916587910872399911) as the sit-in passed the 10-hour mark. The proposed budget for the 2026 fiscal year, [the New York Times reported on Friday](https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/25/us/politics/trump-budget-cuts.html), includes cuts to programs that support childcare, health research, education, housing assistance, community development and the elderly. “Republican leaders have made clear their intention to use the coming weeks to advance a reckless budget scheme to President Trump’s desk that seeks to gut Medicaid, food assistance and basic needs programs that help people, all to give tax breaks to billionaires,” Booker and Jeffries aid in a statement. “Given what’s at stake, these could be some of the most consequential weeks for seniors, kids and families in generations,” they added. Booker [wrote separately on X](https://x.com/SenBooker/status/1916435066248368613): “This is a moral moment in America. Sitting on the Capitol steps with Leader Hakeem Jeffries this morning to discuss what’s at stake with Trump’s budget and affirm the need for action to protect Medicaid, food assistance, and other safety net programs.” Booker and Jeffries started their sit-in around 6am and were joined by lawmakers including Democratic senators Chris Coons and Angela Alsobrooks and representatives Sarah McBride, Maxwell Frost, Gil Cisneros and Gabe Amo, among others. Labor leaders, including Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, also took part in the event that stretched for more than 12 hours. Reverend Dr William J Barber II and the National Education Association president, Becky Pringle, also joined. Pringle said the Trump administration was perpetuating “the greatest assault on public education that we’ve ever seen in this country”. Democrats and independents have added a new degree of physicality to their opposition to the Trump agenda. Earlier this month, Booker set a new record for the chamber’s longest speech when he held the floor, without a bathroom break, for more than 25 hours. Booker said he was doing so with the “intention of disrupting the normal business of the United States senate for as long as I am physically able” in order to protest the actions of Trump and his administration. The Vermont senator Bernie Sanders, an independent, and the New York representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez have been on a “Fighting Oligarchy” nationwide tour of the US to protest the “oligarchs and corporate interests that have so much power and influence in this country”. On Sunday, Sanders, who has accused Democrats of significantly ignoring working-class priorities, said that the party does not have “a vision for the future”. “You have Democrats appropriately, and I’m working with them, talking about Trump’s movement toward authoritarianism, vigorously opposing the so-called reconciliation bill to give over a trillion dollars in tax breaks for the 1% and make massive cuts to Medicaid, nutrition and housing, opposing what Musk is doing to dismember the Social Security Administration and the Veterans Administration, making it hard for our veterans to get decent healthcare or benefits on time,” Sanders told NBC’s Meet the Press. Throughout Sunday’s livestreamed sit-in, groups of curious passersby also found themselves sitting on the Capitol steps listening and weighing in on the discussion.

[Donald Trump](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/donaldtrump) appears to have warmed to Volodymyr Zelenskyy after the two presidents met at the Vatican, with the US leader emerging from talks with a plea for Vladimir Putin: “stop shooting”. Trump on Sunday said Zelenskyy “wants to do something good” for Ukraine and is “working hard”, adding he was also “surprised and disappointed” that [Russia](https://www.theguardian.com/world/russia) continued to strike Ukraine after discussions between his peace envoy, Steve Witkoff, and Putin. Asked what he wants Putin to do, Trump replied: “Well, I want him to stop shooting,” he told reporters. “Sit down and sign the deal. We have the confines of a deal, I believe, and I want him to sign it and be done with it.” While speaking to reporters, Trump hinted at a two-week deadline to strike or at least make progress on a peace deal. Trump has previously threatened to walk away from negotiations if a swift agreement is not reached. When asked if he trusted Putin, Trump replied, “I’ll let you know in about two weeks.” Pressed to elaborate on what he expects to happen in two weeks, he evaded the question. “Two weeks or less,” he said, vaguely, “but you know they’re losing a lot of people. We have 3, 4,000 people dying every week.” [Read the full story](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/apr/27/trump-zelenskyy-putin) More than 300 law enforcement officers from at least 10 federal agencies raided an illegal after-hours nightclub in [Colorado](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/colorado) Springs early on Sunday, arresting more than 100 people authorities said were undocumented immigrants and seizing guns, cocaine, meth and pink cocaine. More than a dozen active-duty military members were detained as well, authorities said. The federal Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) [posted a video on X of the post-raid scene](https://x.com/DEAROCKYMTNDiv/status/1916492498286899514), with dozens of partygoers holding their hands up. Another video [showed](https://x.com/DEAROCKYMTNDiv/status/1916459097404080541) dozens of people fleeing the building through its entrance after federal agents smashed a window. [Read the full story](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/apr/27/immigrants-detained-colorado-springs-nightclub-raid) The US treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, said “there is a path” to an agreement with [China](https://www.theguardian.com/world/china) over [tariffs](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/trump-tariffs) after he had interactions with his Chinese counterparts last week in Washington, but he continued to defend Trump’s trade plan as “strategic uncertainty” amid accusations the White House was sending mixed signals over its policy. [Read the full story](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/apr/27/trump-tariffs-china-negotiations) Trump’s private golf resort in South Florida will next week host one of the world’s leading purveyors of chlorine dioxide, a potentially life-threatening form of industrial bleach that is claimed without evidence to be a cure for cancer, Covid and autism. Andreas Kalcker is among [50 listed speakers](https://charliewardgolf.com/speakers/) at the “Truth Seekers Conference”, a two-day event opening on Thursday at the US president’s resort, Trump National Doral Miami. The event features several anti-vaxxers and other conspiracy theorists who have been brought together by the far-right commentator Charlie Ward. [Read the full story](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/apr/27/trump-golf-club-speaker-bleach) House minority leader [Hakeem Jeffries](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/hakeem-jeffries) and New Jersey senator [Cory Booker](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/cory-booker) were holding a sit-in protest and discussion on Sunday on the steps of the US Capitol in opposition to the [Republicans](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/republicans)’ proposed budget plan. Billed as an “Urgent Conversation with the American People”, [the livestreamed discussion](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ceR90lihX8) comes before Congress’s return to session on Monday, where Democrats hope to stall Republicans’ economic legislative agenda. [Read the full story](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/apr/27/hakeem-jeffries-cory-booker-livestream-protest-republican-funding-bill) Two suspects have been arrested in connection with the theft last week of the US homeland security secretary [Kristi Noem](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/kristi-noem)’s purse as she ate at a Washington DC restaurant, officials said on Sunday. Noem’s purse was nabbed on Easter Sunday and reportedly contained about $3,000 in cash and her keys, driver’s license, passport and homeland security badge. The homeland security department said Noem had cash in her purse to pay for gifts, dinner and other activities for her family on Easter. [Read the full story](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/apr/27/kristi-noem-purse-suspects-arrested) Anti-Trump “hands off” protests grew from tens of thousands of people on 5 February to millions around the country by April. Demonstrations on 19 April were also well attended nationwide. “It’s gone from a trickle to a tidal wave really quickly,” said Hunter Dunn, national press coordinator for the movement 50501, short for 50 protests, 50 states, one day. Here’s how the movement grew. [Read the full story](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/apr/27/trump-protest-movement-50501) What else happened today: ------------------------- * **Trump said he would restore Columbus Day** in full and shirk Joe Biden’s practice of celebrating an Indigenous People’s Day in parallel to the public holiday. “I’m bringing Columbus Day back from the ashes,” he wrote on social media, accusing Democrats of trying to “destroy Christopher Columbus, his reputation, and all of the Italians that love him so much.” * **Americans anxious about their country’s slide into authoritarianism** **found some solace** in the past week over what appears to be [growing pushback by American universities](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/apr/27/universities-oppose-trump-education) against Trump’s assault on higher education. * **Environmental [conservation](https://www.theguardian.com/environment/conservation) groups are expressing major concerns** over Trump’s recent [proclamation](https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/04/unleashing-american-commercial-fishing-in-the-pacific/) to [reverse fishing regulations across the Pacific Islands Heritage Marine national monument](https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/apr/27/trump-fishing-regulation-order-pacific-islands), a federally protected area in the central Pacific Ocean spanning nearly 500,000 sq miles. Catching up? _Here’s what happened on [26 April 2025](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/apr/27/president-trump-administration-news-updates-today)._

 Former Vice President Kamala Harris, in her first major public remarks since leaving the White House, criticized President Trump's [tariff policies](https://www.npr.org/2025/04/09/nx-s1-5357645/trump-tariffs-paused) as "reckless," saying they pose the risk of taking the country into recession. "Some people are describing what's been happening in recent months as absolute chaos. And of course I understand why. It's certainly true of those tariffs. Tariffs that — as I predicted — are clearly inviting a recession," Harris said. She called it the "greatest man-made economic crisis in modern presidential history" and applauded Americans who are rallying against the tariffs, saying they will increase everyday costs and impact retirement accounts and small businesses. The former vice president who failed in her race against Trump last year was speaking in San Francisco at a gala event for the organization Emerge America, which helps women run for office. Her comments come as Trump hits the [100-day](https://www.npr.org/2025/04/30/nx-s1-5379594/trump-100-days) mark of his second term, and as reports show the U.S. economy is [contracting.](https://www.npr.org/2025/04/30/nx-s1-5380204/trump-economy-gdp-tariffs-recession-consumers) Harris had made her [closing argument](https://www.npr.org/2024/10/28/nx-s1-5169210/kamala-harris-donald-trump-jan-6-speech) in the 2024 campaign about the danger of returning Trump to office. On Wednesday, she criticized her formal rival for more than his economic policy, describing his agenda as "a narrow, self-serving vision of America where they punish truth-tellers, favor loyalists, cash in on their power, and leave everyone else to fend for themselves." She warned that if the system of checks and balances in the government falls apart, the country would face a constitutional crisis. "That is a crisis that will eventually impact everyone, because it would mean that the rules that protect our fundamental rights and freedoms, that ensure each of us has a say about how our government works, will no longer matter," Harris said. ### Harris praised people standing up to the Trump administration Since leaving Washington in January, Harris has largely remained out of the public eye. She has made brief remarks at events like the NAACP Image awards, and her name has frequently appeared on Democratic fundraising emails, but her speech in San Francisco was the first time she's spoken directly about Trump. In her remarks, Harris said she was "inspired" by the courage she's seen since the start of Trump's second term from people speaking out about deportations without due process, and judges upholding the rule of law. She praised Maryland Sen. Chris Van Hollen who traveled to El Salvador to highlight the case of Kilmar [Abrego Garcia](https://www.npr.org/2025/04/17/nx-s1-5367666/abrego-garcia-van-hollen-el-salvador), who was deported in error by the Trump administration. Harris also named Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., who spoke on the Senate floor for [25 hours](https://www.npr.org/2025/04/01/nx-s1-5347318/cory-booker-senate-speech), calling out Trump's policies, and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, D-N.Y., and Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., who have rallied massive crowds in red states. Harris, who moved to Los Angeles after leaving office, could still have a future in politics. Those close to her said she is [weighing a run](https://www.npr.org/2025/01/17/nx-s1-5186966/kamala-harris-future-run) for governor of California, or potentially another run for the presidency in 2028 — an election that will include a [crowded field](https://www.npr.org/2025/01/18/nx-s1-5262358/democratic-party-future-trump) of Democrats vying for the nomination. Ending her remarks, Harris left the crowd with a warning: "things are probably going to get worse before they get better." "But we are ready for it," she said.

Top [Democrats](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/democrats) in the US Senate are pushing for a vote on the floor of the chamber censuring [Donald Trump](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/donaldtrump)’s reported plan to accept a $400m luxury jet from the royal family of [Qatar](https://www.theguardian.com/world/qatar) for use as Air Force One and later as a fixture in the Trump’s personal presidential library. Four Democratic members of the Senate foreign relations committee said on Monday that they would press for a vote later this week. They said that elected officials, including the president, were not allowed to accept large gifts from foreign governments unless authorized to do so by Congress. [Cory Booker](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/cory-booker) from New Jersey, Brian Schatz from Hawaii, Chris Coons from Delaware and Chris Murphy from Connecticut cast the reported gift of the Boeing 747-8 jumbo jet as a clear conflict of interest and a serious threat to national security. “Air Force Once is more than just a plane – it’s a symbol of the presidency and of the United States itself,” the senators said in a joint statement. “No one should use public service for personal gain through foreign gifts.” News of a possible gift of the luxury jet prompted immediate scathing criticism from senior [Democrats](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/democrats). Though the Qatari government has stressed that no final decision has yet been made, Trump appeared to confirm it on Sunday when he commented on social media that the transfer was being made “in a very public and transparent transaction”. The plan appears to be for the 13-year-old plane to be fitted out by the US military for use as Air Force One and then, when Trump leaves the White House, for it to be put on display in his presidential library – in effect being handed to Trump for his own personal use. The reported arrangement comes as Trump sets off for a tour of the Middle East, including Qatar. Another of the countries on the tour, the [United Arab Emirates](https://www.theguardian.com/world/united-arab-emirates), has also become embroiled in controversy over potential conflicts of interest involving Trump. Last week it was revealed that an investment firm based in Abu Dhabi had [injected $2bn](https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/wlfs-zach-witkoff-usd1-selected-official-stablecoin-mgx-investment-binance-2025-05-01/?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=5/12/25%20%20AM:&utm_term=Punchbowl%20AM%20and%20Active%20Subscribers%20from%20Memberful%20Combined) into a stablecoin venture launched by Trump’s World Liberty Financial crypto company as an investment into the crypto exchange Binance. Senate Democrats are also gearing up to challenge Trump’s conflicts of interest under congressional rules governing the sale of military weapons to foreign countries. Murphy, the senator from Connecticut who has been at the forefront of sounding the alarm over conflicts of interest in the second [Trump administration](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/trump-administration), has said he will use his powers to challenge arms sales as a way of forcing a full debate and Senate vote on both the Qatar plane and UAE stablecoin issues. [skip past newsletter promotion](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/may/12/trump-qatar-jet-gift-democrats#EmailSignup-skip-link-11) Sign up to This Week in Trumpland A deep dive into the policies, controversies and oddities surrounding the Trump administration **Privacy Notice:** Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our [Privacy Policy](https://www.theguardian.com/help/privacy-policy). We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google [Privacy Policy](https://policies.google.com/privacy) and [Terms of Service](https://policies.google.com/terms) apply. after newsletter promotion He said on social media that he would object to “any military deal with a nation that is paying off Trump personally – we can’t act like this is normal foreign policy”. He added: “UAE’s investment in Trump crypto and Qatar’s gifting of a plane is nuclear grade graft.” In an [earlier post](https://bsky.app/profile/chrismurphyct.bsky.social/post/3lovwaqial22e) on Bluesky, Murphy described the idea of Qatar handing over the jet as being “just wildly illegal”. Trump has so far brushed aside the Democratic fury. He praised Qatar’s offer on Monday as a “great gesture” and said he would “never be one to turn down that kind of offer”.

A leading elected Democrat rejected the idea of taking campaign donations from tech billionaire [Elon Musk](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/elon-musk), whose spectacular fallout with former ally [Donald Trump](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/donaldtrump) has roiled American politics. Trump on Saturday said Musk [will face “serious consequences”](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jun/07/trump-threatens-musk-democrats) if he moves to support Democratic political candidates in any upcoming elections, following a [public rift](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jun/06/donald-trump-elon-musk-meltdown-key-moments-in-the-billionaires-spectacular-split) between the two men over Musk’s staunch opposition to the cost of US president’s planned piece of landmark domestic legislation. But [Cory Booker](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/cory-booker), a senator for New Jersey, scotched any idea he would take any Musk cash. “I would not accept money from Elon Musk for my campaign,” Booker told NBC’s Meet the Press on Sunday. But Booker added, referring to the Republicans budget bill that Musk has criticized, “I would be supportive of anybody, including [Elon Musk](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/elon-musk), putting resources forward right now to let more Americans know, sound the alarm, treat this like a Paul Revere moment.” Booker added: “More Americans have to understand that if this bill passes, average Americans are going to see their costs skyrocket as this president again pushes legislation that is indicative of his chaos, corruption and cruelty towards Americans.” The senator’s comments come as [Democrats](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/democrats) wrestle with the how to turn the dramatic fallout between Musk and Trump into opportunity. Musk turned his back on the party in 2022 and contributed $270m to Trump’s re-election campaign in 2024, providing crucial help in the Republican’s eventual victory. As the Trump-Musk feud intensified on Thursday, Musk [posted on X](https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1929984535456035202): “In November next year, we fire all politicians who betrayed the American people.,” clearly referring to any politician who supported Trump’s budget bill. Ro Khanna, a Democratic congressman, reportedly talked with one of Musk’s “senior confidants” on last week about whether Musk might now want to help the Democrats in the midterm elections next year. “Having Elon speak out against the irrational tariff policy, against the deficit exploding Trump bill, and the anti-science and anti-immigrant agenda can help check Trump’s unconstitutional administration,” Khanna [told Semafor.](https://www.semafor.com/article/06/06/2025/khanna-steps-up-his-work-to-pull-musk-toward-democrats) “I look forward to Elon turning his fire against Maga Republicans instead of Democrats in 2026,” Khanna, who has argued that his party was unwise to alienate Musk, told the outlet. However, leftwing politicians, including Vermont senator Bernie Sanders and New York congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, have publicly pictured Musk as what voters should be against: powerful wealthy billionaires seeking influence through politics. Sanders told CNN’s State of the Union Sunday that Musk had “evolved” into an extremist since he voted for Obama in 2008. “Over the years he has developed into a rightwing extremist. The issue and drama over what happened last week is that we are living, increasingly, in an oligarchic society. Musk said: ‘Hey listen, I spent $270m dollars to get you elected. I bought you the presidency …” “This is a fight between oligarchs. It’s a fight about power among the few, and it’s really an embarrassment for those of us who believe in democracy and the rule of law,” Sanders added. Musk [said last month](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/may/20/elon-musk-political-donations-trump) that he planned to spend “a lot less” on political campaigns as he scaled back and ultimately exited his time in government, where Trump had tasked him with massively slashing federal spending and jobs. “In terms of political spending I’m going to do a lot less in the future,” Musk told a Bloomberg forum in Doha. Asked why, he responded: “I think I’ve done enough.” But Musk’s opposition to Trump’s “One Big Beautiful” bill budget proposal, calling it an [“disgusting abomination”](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jun/03/elon-musk-trump-tax-bill-disgusting-abomination), by definition puts him in relative proximity to Democratic positions on that issue. Booker was asked if agreed with Musk about the planned legislation that Trump has made a centerpiece of his administration. “I agree that it’s going to saddle this country with trillions of dollars of debt, endanger our entire economy … This is a morally wrong bill. And it’s definitely, definitely an economically wrong bill as well.” “This is not about right or left, it’s about right or wrong,” he added. “And I welcome Elon Musk, not to my campaign. I welcome him right now, not to sit back and just fire off tweets, to get involved right now in a more substantive way and putting pressure on congresspeople and senators to not do this.”

[Cory Booker](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/cory-booker) on Thursday [introduced legislation](https://www.booker.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/pesticideinjuryaccountabilityact.pdf) that would create a federal “right of action”, allowing people to sue pesticide makers such as Bayer and Syngenta, and others, for allegedly causing health issues such as cancer and Parkinson’s disease. The Pesticide Injury Accountability Act would “ensure that pesticide manufacturers can be held responsible for the harm caused by their toxic products”, according to a summary of the bill. The legislation would be amended to the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide and Rodenticide Act of 1972 (Fifra). If passed, the law would turn the tables on efforts by Bayer and [a coalition](https://modernagalliance.org/about-us/) of agricultural organizations as they push for [state-by-state legislation](https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/feb/10/pesticide-lawsuits-cancer-gag-act) blocking individuals from being able to file lawsuits accusing the companies of failing to warn of the risks of their products. The industry has also been pushing for federal preemptive protections against litigation. So far, two states – [Georgia](https://apnews.com/article/bayer-roundup-weed-killer-pesticides-cancer-lawsuits-02020b62e2c0affbeccf464677fec871) and [North Dakota](https://apnews.com/article/bayer-roundup-pesticides-cancer-lawsuits-60e5dee80e2eb545ebde893762fb65d5) – have passed what critics call “liability shield” laws. The laws essentially declare that the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has oversight of pesticide labeling and state laws cannot permit companies to be held liable for failing to go beyond what the EPA requires in warning customers of potential risks. Booker’s proposed law would not invalidate the state laws, but would give individuals an alternative – the right to bring their injury claims in federal courts if they can’t bring them in state courts. “Rather than providing a liability shield so that foreign corporations are allowed to poison the American people, Congress should instead … ensure that these chemical companies can be held accountable in federal court for the harm caused by their toxic products,” Booker said in a statement accompanying the announcement of the bill. So far, 17 environmental, public health and consumer groups have endorsed the measure, including leaders in the “Make America healthy again” (Maha) movement. Zen Honeycutt, founder of Moms Across America and a supporter of Booker’s legislation, said it is “unconscionable that corporations are pushing our elected officials to manipulate laws that protect their profits over the health and safety of Americans”. She noted that many pesticides used widely in the US are banned in other countries because of their health risks. The summary of the bill names both Germany-based Bayer and the Chinese-owned Syngenta as key targets and says they and others are seeking “liability shields because they know the harm their products have already caused”. Bayer bought Monsanto in 2018 and inherited [a mass of lawsuits](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/aug/23/bayer-roundup-monsanto-epa-trial-cancer-victims) involving close to 200,000 plaintiffs in the US alone, all alleging that the company should have warned users that its glyphosate-based weed killing products, such as the popular Roundup brand, could cause cancer. The company has already paid out billions of dollars in settlements and jury awards, but still faces [roughly 67,000 lawsuits.](https://www.bayer.com/en/managing-the-roundup-litigation) Likewise, Syngenta is facing several thousand lawsuits from people alleging that its paraquat weed killing products cause Parkinson’s disease and that Syngenta should have warned users of evidence that chronic exposure could cause the incurable brain disease. The company has so far paid out well over $100m to settle cases before they go to trial, and is [attempting to solidify a broad settlement](https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/apr/15/syngenta-weedkiller-parkinsons) of the majority of the cases. Bayer and its allies argue that their pesticide products, which are widely used in farming, are not only safe but are necessary for food production. Costly lawsuits jeopardize the availability of pesticides for agriculture, they say. Bayer did not provide a comment directly about Booker’s bill, but said the “future of American farming depends on reliable science-based regulation of important crop protection products – determined safe for use by the EPA”. The company has asserted in its litigation defense that it should not be subject to failure-to-warn claims because such claims are preempted by federal law. The company says that if it did place [cancer risk warnings on product labels](https://childrenshealthdefense.org/defender/glyphosate-labeling-change-monsantos-bid-roundup-lawsuit/) it would conflict with provisions of FIFRA that give the EPA oversight of labeling language. The EPA says that glyphosate herbicides are “not likely” to be carcinogenic. Bayer said Thursday it wants to see federal legislation to “ensure that states and courts do not take a position or action regarding product labels at odds with congressional intent, federal law and established scientific research and federal authority”. “Farmers and consumers need to not only be able to trust the regulation of the products they use but trust that the government has made decisions based on agreed-upon and established science, facts, and data,” Bayer said. Syngenta said Booker’s bill “targets American food security” and that farmers do not deserve an “attack on the products they rely on”. The company said American agriculture is “highly regulated, productive and safe”, and that its paraquat products specifically, have not been shown to cause Parkinson’s disease. _This story is co-published with the [New Lede](https://www.thenewlede.org/), a journalism project of the Environmental Working Group_