Cory Booker

Mr. BOOKER

Mr. BOOKER. I am going to continue until one of my colleagues asks me a question.

Mr. BOOKER. One of my heroes in the Senate--a living legend, my partner on some bills that I am so passionate about, expanding IVF-- someone that is just freaking awesome, I yield for a question while retaining the floor.

Mr. BOOKER. I love my colleague--I love my colleague--I love how she has been standing up, quite figuratively, time and time again on issues. She really inspired me. I told folks on social media, I have been celebrating, elevating, liking her content. She is truly fierce and is a voice that gives me strength. Today, she is asking me about one of my favorite subjects. A lot of people are surprised. My staff knows this story well that I am on the Ag Committee. When one of my staffers, a guy sitting over here, Adam Zipkin--who has been with me since 1998--came to me and said you should go on the farm committee--this is going to get me in trouble. I laughed at him. It is one of the committees I love. What is the old saying? First, they laugh at you, then they fight you, then they finally accept it. He told me all the issues I care about intersect with our farm and food system; that our farmers are such vital parts of America, they need more people standing up and fighting for them. The American farmers are getting screwed. We are losing thousands of farms in this country, family farmers are going belly-up. The math doesn't work for them. And this President, as you have pointed out--oh, gosh. President Trump is causing an unprecedented amount of chaos, instability, and harm for farmers. Farmers already deal with so much uncertainty from prices, weather, pests, and more. They should not have to deal with uncertainty that our government won't follow through, as you said, on contracts. I had farmers from New Jersey to Texas coming to my office about this President freezing contracts that we approved in a bipartisan manner, putting them in financial crisis. One of the first things that Trump and Musk did was freeze thousands of contracts and agreements that have been already made with our farmers, farmers applied to grant programs and were selected on their merit. They made legally binding contracts. Yet starting in late January, farmers found themselves not getting reimbursed, sometimes reading in the news that a particular grant was frozen or sometimes no information at all other than they were not getting their payments processed.

Mr. BOOKER. I yield for a question while retaining the floor.

Mr. BOOKER. I am aware of one of our colleagues. I just want to say, yes, I am aware of that. The way that Trump--I am just going to summarize--contract freezes, this is one of the ways Trump and Musk are causing havoc. Program cuts. They have eliminated programs that you said support local food systems, including those that connect farmers with food banks and schools and promote regenerative practices. It is stunning. USDA destabilization. Trump and Musk have laid off USDA employees, closed USDA offices, hindering the Agency's ability to provide essential services to foreigners. Tariff policies. Trump's tariff policies implemented without consultation with or support from farmers will increase farmer costs and consumer food prices. And, finally, general chaos, which seems to be something you are pointing out that they are very good at. Farmers already deal with so much uncertainty from prices, weather, pests, and more. They should not have to deal with uncertainty from Donald Trump's administration that will undermine everything that they do.

Mr. BOOKER. I will yield for a question while retaining the floor.

Mr. BOOKER. Yes.

Mr. BOOKER. I love you. I love you. I love you for bringing these things to point because we--by the way, with Adam Zipkin, we did a farm tour. We were in southern Illinois, meeting with Republican farmers--this is before the pandemic--and you see them give so much common cause as they are trying desperately to hold on to their farms. So, with the Crop Insurance Program, we need to reimagine it so it is more accessible to independent family farmers and not just big agribusinesses. We need to be visionary about our farm bill. We need to create a food system so that the farmers will want to help them be better stewards of the land--the oversubscribed programs for regenerative farming and cover crops and environmental practices. They want those things to preserve their soil and to reduce their dependence on chemicals. They want those things. They want a farm bill that works for them, and we should be delivering that in a bipartisan way. So you are right on point. But do you hear that from the White House? Not at all. Not at all.

Mr. BOOKER. I will yield for a question while retaining the floor.

Mr. BOOKER. Please.

Mr. BOOKER. Before I answer the Senator's question, I just want anybody who is watching to know that--and I will put it bluntly--this is one of the baddest ass human beings serving here in the Senate. You have been the Governor of a State with all the challenges. You are beloved. I have spent a lot of time in New Hampshire. Folks, after New Jersey, it is one of my favorite new States. No disrespect to New Mexico over here on my right. But I love your State. I love the people of your State, and they love you. You were an extraordinary Governor. You were a trailblazer, a glass ceiling breaker, a name-taker. You are a bad ass. And to have served with you as my colleague, you have the kind of leadership in the Senate that it needs more of, that of somebody who stands in the middle and draws people together to common sense and pragmatism. I started on healthcare--

Mr. BOOKER.--you know, some 16 or so hours ago, and you would be proud of me because she is one of these voices who comes to me and says: Hey, Cory. Let's bring people together. I know that the Presiding Officer is new here, but he has the same spirit of trying to bring people together. This might be like the third time I have seen him in the chair over the last hours--17 hours. Thank you, sir. But you whisper in my ear all the time, like we have got to find a way to do this together. We have got to find a way to put more ``indivisible'' into ``one nation under God.'' So I hope that you would be proud because I told my staff, who prepared for days--they spent days preparing all these sections, from farming to the environment and all the ways that Donald Trump is betraying his promises, betraying America, driving up costs, wrecking our economy, endangering us globally and here at home, and turning his back on a lot of our values, all while disrespecting this document more than any President I have seen. But I wanted to make sure--I told the instructions to my staff to pull from all the Republicans you can. We want to use the Wall Street Journal. We want to use the Cato Institute. We want to bring this together because why we are standing up here is not to talk about left or right; we are talking about what is right or wrong. I do not want to talk about this being a Democratic moment; it is a moral moment. You are the perfect Senator to be asking these questions about healthcare to, to me, because of what you stand for. You got elected as Governor--twice, I think. When you get elected to the Senate here, you have to get votes from Democrats, Independents, and Republicans or you can't win in New Hampshire. I have been in your State, and I have met the people. God, you have a very participatory democracy up there.

Mr. BOOKER. People feel like, if you are not going from north to south to house parties, you have to engage directly with the people. They don't care what party you ascribe to; they want to feel you, see you. They don't care how much you know until they know how much you care. That is why I think you are such a bad ass leader. So you would have been proud of me when I did the healthcare section because I read from Republican Governors and Democratic Governors. Forty States have expanded Medicaid, and all of these Governors and all of these voices said exactly what you are intimating here, which is, do not let Donald Trump cut $880 billion out of Medicaid. It will crush rural hospitals. It will crush level I trauma care centers. It will crush organizations that deal with beautiful disabled children. It will crush people who are struggling for healthcare. It will crush nursing homes. It will hurt red counties and blue counties. It will hurt America. Republican voices were saying that. To have a bipartisan Senator who embodies the spirit this place should ascribe to more say these things is affirming the truth. Why? Why are they rushing to cut $880 billion, which voice after voice whom I read said that it would do so much damage to people's lives, so much damage to healthcare providers, so much damage to hospitals. Why? The only two things that will result from that are that they will extend the Trump tax cuts, where the disproportionate benefits went to the wealthiest among us, who are doing better than they have ever done in this country--they don't need it. Taking money from struggling folks and giving it to them is not the answer. The other thing is, to a person who, like me, when we were executives--you were a Governor, and I was a mighty mayor. We had to balance our budgets. But they are not balancing the budget. They are not lowering the deficit. They are increasing it by trillions of dollars. This makes no sense to a pragmatic person who has balanced budgets, who expanded healthcare access, who made her State work, and who has loved and respected votes, frankly, from Democrats and Republicans. You know this makes no sense. So if you are standing up and colleagues of mine further to the left of me, then why aren't other people standing up? Why did only one Republican in the House vote against it? He told the truth. Massie. I see some of my Republican colleagues here. He is a fiscal hawk. He told the truth. This budget is going to explode the American national debt, stealing from future generations. I can't vote for this. He was not bullied, like other people in the House, into doing what dear leader Donald Trump says. So, my colleague, you are on the money. I have internalized your voice as there are only a few people's voices I have internalized. One of them is my mother's, but you are more my peer. You are one of those voices in America right now who we need who does not slip into a partisan argument but makes the pragmatic argument that what Donald Trump is trying to do, with the aiding and abetting of congressional Republicans, is wrong. It is fiscally wrong. It is morally wrong. It will hurt Americans. It is not for the common welfare. It is not for the common defense. Read the start of the Constitution, please. I beg of you. You all swore to uphold it. How do our Founders begin? We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity. Trillions of dollars of deficit doesn't secure the blessings of liberty; it endangers our country. The common welfare is this idea that everybody should have access to what makes us free. What makes us free is not having medical debt. What makes us free is not being chained to the uncertainty and insecurity that if someone in my family gets sick, I would not be able to afford it. Still the majority or close to the majority of bankruptcies in the United States of America are of people who can't afford their healthcare bills. We need to find better ways to expand access and not cut more people off. You know this, former Governor: There are a number of States that have these things called triggers, automatic triggers, in that if the funding for Medicaid reduces to covering 90 percent of the costs, what happens in those States? Boom! Medicaid expansion goes offline. So if you don't even cut it $880 billion and maybe you say we will just do $250 billion of an ax, States are going to lose their expansion, and people are going to suffer and get hurt. Why? You said it. You said it. You said it. You and I are the two people who want to see entrepreneurs make money. You and I want to see small business people thrive. We don't hate rich people. We think that is great. It is often, not always-- Donald Trump--it is often a sign of people in America who are using the ingenuity, applying it, and being successful. But you and I both know that the richest people in this country don't need more tax cuts. It is morally wrong. It is fiscally wrong. It is wrong in the Name of God and America. How could we be doing this to ourselves?

Mr. BOOKER. I can't call you one of the baddest ass people I have ever worked with and not yield to your question, but I have to read the words: I yield for a question while retaining the floor.

Mr. BOOKER. Shots fired on the Senate floor. Where is the Parliamentarian?

Mr. BOOKER. Rule XIX her.

Mr. BOOKER. Last night, I had a whole chapter on Social Security, outlining not just what you said, my colleague, my friend, but stories from seniors. And some of them really got to me. They were hard to read through. I have to say, I have prepped this by reading a lot of them, but somehow on the floor, when I read about the woman who had Parkinson's, when I read about the person taking care of their elderly parents, a spouse with dementia, children with special needs--and Social Security, it helps a lot of folks. But here is the craziness--the craziness--of the Trump attacks on the Social Security Administration: First, he makes people insecure about it. My mom lives in this amazing senior home, Las Ventanas, in Las Vegas, NV. Most of the people there--first of all, I love them all for who they are, not their party affiliation. But it is more Republicans than Democrats. And the story my mom tells me about just the worry that they or other people in their family have because of Elon Musk calling it a Ponzi scheme, of Donald Trump talking about utter lies from the highest post in the land, during a joint address, savaging Social Security with lies that everybody, from conservative papers to Democratic papers, to left-leaning papers, have all called that lie, lie, lie, lie, lie-- there are not millions of people receiving false payments. They have insinuated so much insecurity that people are writing me letters talking about how they are losing sleep. They have so much anxiety because they only live on their Social Security check. And Howard Lutnick, whom I know--and I don't know what he was thinking when he said it, a billionaire talking about his mother-in- law--I don't know what you were thinking, Howard. I just don't understand it, how you were saying if she misses a payment, she is OK; but if people complain, they are probably fraudsters. Do you understand how many millions of Americans only have that as their only protection between poverty and destitution; that if they miss a payment, they can't make their rent, they can't buy food? So they have created so much insecurity, so much fear, and I compared it, Governor--I compared it--to the difference between an FDR and a Donald Trump. FDR knew people were suffering. He knew people were afraid, and he stood before the American public and didn't lie to them, didn't attack people, didn't demean people, didn't degrade people. He comforted people. He allayed their fears. He inspired them: ``You have nothing to fear but fear itself''--what an opposite in leadership. So, yes, there are a lot of people who, right now, don't know. But then my colleague from Massachusetts comes in and makes the very clear point--the professor we have in our caucus--she makes a very good point: They have already done benefit cuts because when you close offices in rural areas, that person who is missing a check or has an issue, now they have to drive--how many miles?

Mr. BOOKER. A hundred miles. Now, what is that hardship to a senior? I have heard from people in their nineties. They already are having benefit cuts. The Wall Street Journal--I told you, I was trying to make you proud. I wanted to get as many sources from anybody that was more center to right, and I read from the Wall Street Journal and said the customer service--the customer service--in Social Security is going from bad to worse. That was the title of the article. So they are already doing cuts. They are already heaping insecurity on our seniors, heaping inconvenience on our seniors, heaping fear upon our seniors, heaping insecurity, making people lose sleep. This is wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong. This is not a model of leadership. It is a model of cruelty and mean-spiritedness and hurting people. When is it enough, America? When is it enough that we say, it may not be my grandmother who depends on that Social Security check, but I love America. And you cannot love Americans, you cannot love America, you cannot call yourself a patriot--please listen to me. You cannot say you love this country and you are a patriot because patriotism is love of country, but you can't love your country unless you love your country men and women. And love means that if somebody's mother or grandmother is hurting, is afraid, that I am going to stand up and do what I can to comfort them and fight for them because, today, it might be your grandmother; it might be your family with a disabled child. This is not right or left; it is right or wrong. This is not a partisan moment; it is a moral moment. Where do you stand? We started this by talking about John Lewis. It is time for good trouble, necessary trouble. Thank you. Thank you, my friend, even though you made fun of me, before my entire State, for not remembering the very important preamble to the Constitution.

Mr. BOOKER. Thank you very much. I take your compliments because you don't give them abundantly or overly well. So thank you very much.

Mr. BOOKER. Heck no, not to you. Not to you. Not to you. Let me tell you, I have something to get off of my chest about you. I woke up yesterday morning, and the first thing I did--now, this shirt is all wrinkled and a little ripe. But the first thing I did is grab a gift from you. People, don't get upset ethics-wise. We are allowed to give each other gifts. This looks like--I don't know how much it costs, but you gave me--I was talking about traveling and how we have to pack bags and go all the time. And you told me: I travel with a steamer. And I pulled out this little steamer for this shirt that I am wearing right now. You are one of the kindest, sweetest people I know. You are one of my closest friends here in the U.S. Senate. And I want to say something about you because, in this moment, as people are watching, I want people to go there. We had a conversation. You came to my office. It is always a sign of respect when you come to a Senator's office. And you came to my office, and we were talking about social media. And I was encouraging you. You were a little resistant--if you don't mind me outing you--to open up and get more on the platform. We were talking about ideas and talking about Social Security, talking about Medicare and Medicaid. You opened up to me. And I hope I am not betraying confidences. I asked you just like, what do you do? You are such an amazing human being. You are one of the kindest people I know. I asked you: What do you do on your weekends? What do you do for fun? Let people see it. Then you kind of made me pause when you said: Well, my mother is kind of getting old--is getting older. I love her so much. You said: My siblings and I, we alternate weekends, just spending time with our mother. It was one of the sweetest things I heard. I said to you: What do you do with your mom? And then you brightened up. And you choked me up, you jerk, because you said: What I love to do with my mom is to dance with her in the kitchen. When we are in the kitchen making food or something, I just love sometimes to put on a song, and we dance. I don't know why it struck me as beautiful. And this is what I hope people will do right now. I said: Well, why don't you record that? I didn't think you would do it, that you would ask her if you could do it. But you then put up one of the most beautiful videos I have ever seen, from one of my colleagues, of you and your mom in the kitchen. I think it is on your Instagram page. And I have looked at that video--I am probably all the views right now--of my colleague, this big U.S. Senator, loving his mother so much. And we are talking about that. I have talked about this on the floor. Great nations respect their elders. They take care of them. One of my colleagues, when they asked me a question about Social Security, they reminded me of what it was--the greatest anti-poverty program in the history of America; that Social Security rescued millions of Americans from being in poverty. It virtually ended poverty, although the checks now are becoming meager and meager. As prices are going up, more people are getting lower and lower toward poverty. And people who live on those checks live very austerely. But you are just this amazing guy who turns your own lived experience into greater and greater urgencies to fight for the people of New Mexico. So I did not want to yield for a question before getting that off my chest. You are my friend. You are my colleague. You are my brother. And more than you know it, you are my inspiration. So, yes, I yield for a question while retaining the floor now. I feel like I have so much power here to yield to my colleagues. They are often more eloquent. I am like afraid of Whitehouse because he is one of the brainiest people in the Senate. But I now have the control. But for you, now that I have gotten this off my chest and, hopefully, embarrassed you but maybe added a few more views to my favorite video, I yield for a question while retaining the floor.

Mr. BOOKER. Yes.

Mr. BOOKER. Yep.

Mr. BOOKER. Yes.

Mr. BOOKER. One of my favorite stories.

Mr. BOOKER. Thank you for the question. You said it with the same words that literally--I didn't write these words. My staff wrote this little paragraph here: Trump is pulling the rug out from under producers that need stability and reliable markets. You and I are sitting right by each other in the Ag Committee, and we see this connection that you so beautifully say, this idea that we are separate from each other. These visible lines that divide us in this country are bunk compared to the strong ties that bind us. That farmer-producer in a rural neighborhood is deeply connected to the person in my community, and I live in an inner city--Newark, NJ. There is a powerful spiritual connection. And if you talk to that farmer, they have got pride that they are feeding America, and they have pride in the ground. You describe it so beautifully. They have pride in their soil, and they want to be stewards of the land, and they want to create a vibrant American food system. And they rely on people that empower them in that process and don't pull the rug out from under them, drag back contracts, cut programing--especially not those programs that help them get fresh fruits and vegetables, healthy foods to food banks. If you talk to the food banks, they will attest that families--how grateful they are for those fresh fruits and vegetables. You said it right: Parents want the best quality food for their kids. But this food system is killing them. And when I heard the new Secretary of HHS talk about: Hey, we need to get greater access to fresh, healthy foods; food is medicine--things I have been saying for years--and then what do they do when they get in there? They cut the very programs that help our farmers get fresh fruits and vegetables to kids to deal with chronic diseases. How could you say out of one side of your mouth--Trump--oh, I am going to let the MAHA people go their way, and then the first thing you do is cut the programs that help kids get healthy, nutritious foods? It makes no sense. It makes no economic sense. It hurts our farmers. It hurts our farmworkers. It hurts our end users. It is not fair, and I appreciate your question, sir. Thank you.