Booker says it ‘irked’ him that Thurmond held previous record to ‘stop people like me from being in the Senate’

Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) said Tuesday he was determined to surpass Sen. Strom Thurmond’s (S.C.) record for longest Senate floor speech in history, saying it “irked” him that the segregationist made history by trying to block the Civil Rights Act of 1957.

“To be candid, Strom Thurmond’s record always kind of, just, just really irked me, that he would be the longest speech — that the longest speech, on our great Senate floor, was someone who was trying to stop people like me from being in the Senate,” Booker said on MSNBC’s “The Rachel Maddow Show,” in his first interview after spending more than 25 hours holding the Senate floor.

“So to surpass that was something I didn’t know if we could do, but it was something that was really, once we got closer, became more and more important to me,” Booker said.

Booker began his marathon speech at 7 p.m. EDT Monday and finally yielded the floor at 8:05 p.m. Tuesday, making history with a speech lasting 25 hours and 5 minutes. He topped Thurmond’s previous record of 24 hours and 18 minutes.

As he neared that mark, Booker noted there is a room on the Senate side of the Capitol named after Thurmond, who opposed segregation throughout his life, which included changing parties from Democratic to Republican seven years after the record-setting filibuster.

“To hate him is wrong, and maybe my ego got too caught up in, 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,” Booker said Tuesday.

“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,” Booker added.

Booker used his marathon speech to decry Republicans’ potential spending cuts in their looming tax bill and policies put in place by the Trump administration.

Throughout the speech, Booker was required to remain standing and was prohibited from leaving his desk. He was helped by scores of Democratic colleagues who appeared on the floor to ask him questions, with some speaking on their own for minutes on end to temporarily ease his burden. 

But it was Booker who largely talked throughout, having declared he was ready to “stand here for as many hours as I can.”