'This has got to be a moment in America,' Cory Booker tells 1st town hall since record speech
Source: AP
Updated 6:45 PM EDT, April 5, 2025
PARAMUS, N.J. (AP) — Democratic Sen. Cory Booker took a version of his record-breaking Senate floor speech on the road Saturday to a town hall meeting in a New Jersey gymnasium, calling on people to find out what they can do to push back on President Donald Trump’s agenda.
Booker took questions at suburban New Jersey’s Bergen Community College the same day as more than 1,200 “Hands Off!” demonstrations were planned around the country. The town hall event was punctuated both by celebratory shouts of “Cory, Cory” as well as at least a half-dozen interruptions by protesters.
It was Booker’s first in-person event in his home state since his speech this week, where he held the Senate floor for 25 hours and 5 minutes in opposition to Trump’s policies. In doing so, he broke the record for the longest floor speech, which was set by segregationist Sen. Strom Thurmond in opposition to the Civil Rights Act of 1957.
Questioner after questioner asked what they could be doing to show their disagreement and worry over the president’s policies. Booker told them it only takes a little bit more — could they afford a trip to Washington to lobby against budget cuts? One of the loudest moments of applause came after he addressed a woman who said she worried about what potential Medicaid cuts could mean for her son with autism.
Read more: https://apnews.com/article/cory-booker-town-hall-democrats-record-speech-e5882bbbc0f27ab49aa55c9965956e72
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