Cory Booker

Mr. BOOKER

Mr. BOOKER. Not immediately. I want to say to Patty Murray thank you. You were a coconspirator in my life of trying to cause good trouble. You are one of the most powerful people in the U.S. Senate, and you have never lost. Your compassion and your care for people--you are like somebody else I talked about in the Senate, two of my favorite people who live this ideal that I may be a U.S. Senator, I may be head of Appropriations, I may be President pro tempore of the Senate, but I will never lose my connection to the people I represent and to the convictions that brought me to this place. You are such an honorable soul; you are such a great American; and you have been such a dear friend to me in this Congress. I savor the times where you let me come to your--a lot more seniority than I--you have got a great hideaway with a view--with a view, one day maybe. But I just want to say thank you, Patty Murray, for being so kind to me. Your showing up right now gives me a lot of strength, puts more fuel in my tank. So now--I feel all this power--now, you will outrank me in every imaginable way here. You are the head of Democratic Appropriations so I am obligated by the State of New Jersey to be very obsequious to you. I yield for a question while retaining the floor.

Mr. BOOKER. I want to answer this question so badly, but the crazy thing is that the person best to answer this question is the person who asked it. You have sat here and given this detailed analysis to show how this group of very wealthy billionaires in this country are so perverting our system by creating these front groups that then interfere in our democracy in the most disgusting ways. Even if you are like me and you can't stand the decision of Citizens United, even in Citizens United, the majority opinion really projected that we should do the DISCLOSE Act, which we have tried to bring to this floor and get passed, that says no more dark money. How do we have a political system that is so corrupted by billionaires who so, with all of their money, drown out the voices in politics of other Americans? (Mrs. BRITT assumed the Chair.) A great example of that is, they are getting so reckless that many billionaires aren't even hiding it anymore; i.e. Elon Musk. He is like saying, Hey, I am going to roll up into a Supreme Court case up in one of our best Great Lake States. I am just going to dump $100 million there and then give away, as if to insult our democracy, million-dollar checks as part of my effort to influence an election with my overwhelming flood-the-zone amount of billions of dollars. And by the way, hey, it is a pretty good investment, right? Donald Trump is his biggest campaign contributor. As soon he gets elected, a lot of my stock goes up--although, Tesla stock isn't doing so great right now. The reality is, we live in a country right now that we are giving more and more ability for billionaires to use their wealth to rig the system and then get more wealth as a result of that. It is so corrupt and so corrupting to this. We have been talking about this, as you said, for 18 hours now--these big, unchecked corporate contributions, billionaire dollars, dark money in front organizations that nobody in the Senate has outlined better than you are corrupting our Constitution. And even the bad case, Citizens United, even they said this shouldn't have happened. You all should write laws in this place that force people to disclose where this money is coming from. But how many years has it been since Citizens United? Many. And how many times have we failed? 15. Gosh, I don't know--and I am so grateful for this man because all my colleagues who are assembled here know doggedly and determinately you have stood right there with charts and graphs. You have outlined it ad nauseam. They have attacked you because your truth is so threatening to them that more people will know about how Big Money is corrupting democracy. So how many assaults are we going to have to watch in 71 days when we now have a President that can create a meme coin? Isn't there something here, my great constitutional scholar, a big word called the called emoluments? This President has basically created a meme coin where we now know--hard to trace this--that millions of dollars have been put into his pocket. I have my team reading about it right now; foreign countries, Russian oligarchs, incredible Arab wealth. You want a payoff to Donald Trump because his government is being run like this? It is not JFK: Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you do for your country. You have seen how he has behaved. It is ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for Donald Trump. That is how he does business. How do we know that? Look at the evidence of the last 71 days. If you are a law firm that comes to him and offers him $40 million of pro bono work--God how many people I love in Newark had that kind of legal representation, pro bono. He is beating you up, threatening to ruin your business until you come to him and tell him what you are going to do for him. We are seeing it. You want a merger? You want a merger? What do you do? Give a million dollars to his inaugural committee and then find ways--find ways to get money to him through his meme coin, kowtow to him in any way possible. Senator Whitehouse, nobody has outlined this more than I have--more than you have, excuse me. I encourage people--I feel like now I am advertising everybody's social media--to go to his YouTube. I call him the YouTube scholar. I am not joking. You have on YouTube, I know, just great details and outline about how the corruption of money in politics is getting worse and worse and worse in this era of billionaires like Elon Musk who have no shame anymore. I am going to say it on the Senate floor: There are so many reports and stories of them threatening elected leaders, threatening to put $100 million in a primary challenge if they don't kowtow to what the great leader is telling them to do. You use the word all the time, and I am going to say it over and over: This is corrupting to our democracy and amounts to another assault on our Constitution. How much will we take, America, until we say enough, until we say no more, until we say pass the Disclose Act, bring back the dark money. Put light on it. Shine the light of truth on this web of dark money lies. How long will we endure this? I hope that you and I are in the Senate when you no longer have to give that speech because we took action on the Senate floor to end this nightmare of billionaires trying to outsize influence on our democracy.

Mr. BOOKER. And you all put tariffs on us. And I remember the quiet, the silence around that committee table. I felt like, whoa, this is such an ally, such a friend, such a consistent ally of us throughout the hardest difficult times in history, never left our side. Her litany was so admirable, and then she looks at us, a national security waiver, hardships on our economy, national security waiver to put tariffs on. And they hurt Americans, and they hurt-- embarrassingly hurt our northern neighbor. But I thought that was bad enough. And now, what kind of bully are you? What kind of mean spirit do you look at your northern neighbor and say: I am going to call you Governor, not with the title you earned by the people that put you in that office. It is the worst kind of behavior. And nobody calls him out, of our Republican colleagues--not enough of them called it out, I should say. So we are in, as I read in that article, in an economic crisis. I question: How long will we wait until more of us join in a chorus to say enough is enough? I don't know the answers. I don't know how we can stop him. But I know we did in the first term. We pushed back on him successfully and on his attempts to try to take healthcare away from tens of millions of Americans, and we can do it again. But more people have to do things differently. They have to do like we have been talking about all day--and I will turn to my colleague again--as John Lewis called us: Get in good trouble, necessary trouble. Heal the soul of America. We have to do more and follow the examples of our forefathers and foremothers who never gave up, with conviction and determination, with indefatigable spirit and unyielding grace that continues, time and time again, pushing back and bending the arc. It is our turn. What are we going to do? We have to answer that question. We have to do more.

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

Mr. BOOKER. I want to answer that question. I want to, at first, say Hakeem Jeffries is here. Now I am worried because two Brooklynites are shaking hands. I confess, when I had the floor and Schumer was here, it was the only time in my life I could deny him the right to speak on the Senate floor. I confess to my friend who is part of the X generation--the hip-hop generation--my brother who is part of that transition in American history from the ``greatest generation'' to baby boomers, that the baby boomers are now seeing leaders emerge that are X generation and millennials. He represents the best of the future. This question is so good--because you didn't honor your commitment to me and talk about your book. I want to say I insulted Brooklyn for stealing my Nets. I told the leader--I abused my power to retain the floor, and I told the leader there is only one football team in New York, the Buffalo Bills. The other two are in New Jersey. I should have reminded the leader that the ``Chairman of the Board,'' who sings ``New York, New York'' is actually from New Jersey. I can go on with this litany. I do want to get back to your very serious question about tyranny. I think many of us have read books like ``On Tyranny.'' We are reading articles, and people are talking about the fears that they have, fears that they have about this document. You and I have had serious conversations over the last 72 days of Donald Trump's Presidency. How much of the encroachment--I would say ``encroachment'' is a gentle word--of the separation of powers is happening? We are watching Justices, judges--from Republican appointees to Democratic appointees--trying to stop him from doing things. Which one of our great Bill of Rights amendments, from the freedom of the press--he is doing things to the press that, in my opinion, are bullying them, breaking with traditions that Presidents have done in the past; trying to create a press corps like Putin or Erdogan have, who will only let people in the room who will give obsequious supplications often for the dear leader. What about the freedom of speech? You and I both know reprehensible speech is protected. Disappearing people for what they said--Scalia talked very clearly about having rights, even when you are in the country. One of the most conservative Justices said: You have rights. We are seeing him invoke emergencies. You have been the leader in our caucus, talking about the absurdities of these emergencies he is doing. He tried to rally this body saying: Don't let this happen. You talked to me about all of these things. So what is the limit of tyranny? You and I--and we talked about this with your book. I am trying to get back there. I told you once, when Skip Gates did my history, that he traced my history back to Virginia. I tried to show you that I have more Virginia legitimacy because my roots go back to 1640 in your State. The Stampers came over, and following down, down, down, then Henrietta Stamper, who my mom still talks about as a relative. John Stamper--and with the chart that Skip Gates gave me, the only thing you could say about John Stamper is that the mother of Henrietta Stamper was ``slave woman.'' Born Henrietta Stamper, they called her on her documents ``mulatto'' and Stamper fought for her ownership because it would later come out that was his child. These are the traditions in my family. It is really amazing what Skip Gates did and showed me that I am a direct descendent of slaves and slave owners. I am a direct descendent of a Confederate soldier that was captured in retreat. I am the direct descendent of Native Americans and people who fought in the Creek war to kill Native Americans. And these traditions in our country, I draw upon all of them. I am proud of all of them. They speak us to. They speak to the complicated history of America. But perhaps one of the best things I got about this complicated history was a visit to my office by--I don't know if I told the leader this--I am sorry. I am going to return to his question. I know how busy the leader is. If the leader asks me a question--if he asks--I will yield for a question.

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

Mr. BOOKER. Chuck, I am not 100 percent right now, and you just hit me with stunning news that I can't even think about how to respond right now. I am stunned by that. I wish--if you want to ask me a question, ask me a question. I wish you would explain a little bit more because what you are basically saying to me is that we are not going to go through the Parliamentarian. This is a gimmick that is going to be done to try to break, really, what the Byrd rule requirements of reconciliation are. I am using Senate speak, and I don't think we should use that. So what they are going to try to say is obscure the impact of reconciliation. They are going to obscure this--the incredible tax cuts, the cost of trillions of dollars to our economy--blowing up our debt. So-called fiscal hawks are going to blow it up. I am stunned by this news.

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

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

Mr. BOOKER. I hate to answer the question this way, but America will regret this day. The American people will regret this day. All of us will regret this. All of us will.

Mr. BOOKER. You cannot yield the floor because I have the floor, sir. I maintain the floor. This is one of the few times I will be able to get to tell Chuck Schumer what the rules are here. But I just want to get back to you, and maybe this is a way to get back to you by sharing a story I don't think I have ever told you. (Mr. CURTIS assumed the Chair.) It was a few years ago with one of Biden's last State of the Union speeches, and I--we all had to vote on the floor about an hour before the speech, and then we would come back here and assemble to do this extraordinary walk through history. So, days before that, I was with the leader, Hakeem, and I was with some other people in the Oval Office with the President. The President put his arm around me as we finished the meeting, and he said: Hey, Cory. And I am like: Yes, Mr. President. I have got a big speech coming up. I know, Mr. President. I am going to go to Camp David to work on it. And I said: OK, Mr. President. He goes: Can I call you if I need some help? And I said: Yes. Right, Mr. President. Sure. And that was it. Over the weekend, he didn't call me for help with his speech, and we came here and did that vote an hour before, and then--I like walking out that door. Many people know this. If I can, I go straight out the next doors and onto the steps. I love those steps-- maybe because I watched ``Schoolhouse Rock'' as a kid, and that is where there was ``Mr. Bill, I am just a bill.'' So I pause sometimes there and just feel the sense of gratitude and the Supreme Court right in front of me and the Library of Congress, and if you stand in the right place, you can see the gold dome behind you. As I am standing there in that moment an hour before we have to hustle back here, my phone rings. I answer my phone, and it begins with what I think is one of the top stupidest questions in America. You have gotten this question. I think you would agree with me. You are not the kind of guy who uses words like, ``Hey, this is stupid,'' but this is stupid. The thing I heard--the stupid question--was this: This is the White House operator. Will you hold for the President of the United States? Who says no to that question as one does when they get a call from the President of the United States? So I say: Yeah. I will hold. Hold it a minute. I am washing my hair. I say: Yes, of course. The next thing you know, it is Joe Biden, and he goes: Cory. And I go: Mr. President. He goes: I am struggling with my speech. And at that point--I know you weren't this kind of student in college, but all of my guilt from my college days of waiting until the last minute to finish a paper was gone. The President of the United States was waiting until the last minute to finish his speech. Heck, I feel good. And so he goes: Cory, can I read you a section of this speech? So he read to me a section of the speech where I have a lot of policy depth, and I couldn't believe it. The President of the United States, an hour before his speech, is rehearsing a part of the speech, and then he asks me that immortal question. You are a married man. You have to give me good advice on how to answer this question. When your spouse looks at you and says, ``How do I look?'' you are torn between two things--right?--maybe to tell the truth or to tell your spouse what they want to hear. Tell me what you answer with, but you can't do it now because I have the floor. And so I take a moment. Am I going to tell the President what I really think of this section or am I going to just say: ``Yes, Mr. Leader''? So I decided that he called me up an hour before his speech. So he really must want my advice. And I gave some hard input. Turn this dial down more. Turn this one to whatever. And he said: OK, Cory. And abruptly he is gone. I go back to the office, and I tell them: I just got a call from the President of the United States, and he asked for help on his speech. What a crazy life moment while I stood on the steps, like the bill--``I'm just a bill.'' Anyway, we get back here, and it is a wonderful moment in the Senate. I don't know if anybody has the privilege of seeing what we do. We all gaggle around those doors. We talk to each other. People think we always fight and yell. That is not the case. Democrats and Republicans merge into this ball of senatorial humanity. Then, when those doors open, I love it because, when you walk out, you walk past Thune's office--what used to be the Library of Congress. You walk past the Old Senate Chamber, where there were some of the greatest debates in American history and violence on that Senate floor with the caning of Sumner. You walk through the dome and the statue of Lincoln by an 18-year-old woman named Ream, the suffrage leaders, Martin Luther King, Presidents--extraordinary Presidents. Then you walk past where the old House used to be. And you love this, and I love this--those little gold plates on the floor where Presidents had their desks, exactly where the Presidents had their desks. Most people go in right under the Junipero Serra, California's statue. Under that cross is Lincoln's gold plate--people who were in the House and served as the President. That is not my favorite one, though. It is John Quincy Adams. Why? You know this. He was the only person in American history ever--and it will probably never happen again--where somebody went to the Presidency and came back to the House. He ran for a House seat. He worked at that spot where that desk was until he collapsed and was carried off the floor. He would soon later die. Amazing. Maybe a future President will. Maybe Obama is going to think, you know: I have got to run for the House. Then you get into that old Chamber, and we sit down; we find our seats. Then, at that great moment--I don't care if you are Republican or Democrat. When that person walks in and says, ``The President of the United States of America,'' I still get that feeling. Joe Biden comes in, and I think he sets a record for the longest it would take to get from those doors all the way down. Everybody he is talking to. ``Marjorie Taylor Greene, what's up?'' He is just touching everybody. He gets up there, and he gives his speech. Now, you know that this is an aerobic event. You stand up. You sit down. You stand up. You sit down. You have got to get your squats in when you are doing it. Well, the part of the speech he called me on is--and I am sitting down, and I hear my input in the speech. I don't know if you all noticed, my colleagues, but I was the first person to stand up for that section, and I was looking at Schatz: Get up, man. This is the best speech ever given. It was amazing. I go home. I am kind of buzzing about the whole experience, and I am lying in bed. Unfortunately, I have my phone on my nightstand, and it goes off. I see a number I don't recognize, but I open it up, and it says: Senator Booker, this is John Meacham-- The great historian. Thank you for helping the President of the United States with his speech. You made more of a difference than you will ever know. And my first thought was, How do I print this out? How do you print out a text? So he gave me his cell phone number, and now, I am going to troll him until this historian comes to my office and finally relents. He comes, and now, he steps into your domain, my brilliant friend of history. I expressed worry, fear, concern, demagoguery in our land, the rising of tribalism. I dump on him. I am normally a prisoner of hope. I am normally a purveyor of finding your joy even in the toughest of times. And he listens for a while, and then--and then--and then he looks at me and says: Cory, there is nothing about this time that is unprecedented. It is all precedented. You want to talk about demagoguery? And he goes through every generation of Americans having extraordinary demagogues. I read Margaret Chase Smith's incredible speech on this floor against a demagogue and the demagoguery even within her own party. He talked about the No. 1 radio show in all of America that the majority of Americans listen to and its anti-Semitic screeds.

Mr. BOOKER. Father Coughlin. He went through them all, and he said: Do you want a big worry? He said that there was an American general in the Depression. He said his name, but I am forgetting it now. I am not at my best. He said that this guy was calling for a military takeover of our democracy. Do you want to talk about authoritarianism? He talked about a Senator here on the left, Huey Long, who was calling for the people to storm the Capitol. He went through this all, and he said: Every single time, Nazis were in Manhattan at Madison Square Garden. I couldn't believe it. It was unbelievable. I wish people were there listening to this guy as he went through of all these times when America was at a crossroads, when we came upon a moral moment, and he said: What happened as to how we chose the right path? When people were trashing this document or treading on it or undermining it, when demagogues rose to the highest points of popularity in our land, how did we stop it? Well, he looked at me with some sympathy and said: Not you guys. Not a Senator. It was that the better majority of American people said: Enough. They chose to define the soul of our country. He gave that phraseology to our President, and he said the soul of America is not the people in office; it is the everyday citizens who choose the better angels of their nature, who choose right over wrong, who recognize a moral moment and know that they have to stand up and bend the arc of the moral universe or, more importantly, steer the ship of our state out of the troubled waters into the clear, open sea. I rose here--and I have gotten into lots of questions with my colleagues. But I rose, hoping to have reborn more of the stories of as many Americans as I could, and during the night, my friend Chris Murphy and I read a lot of them. You know me well, my friend. You know the truth of all of us in this place. You know the truth of everybody. We are all mountain ranges. We all have peaks, and we all have valleys. You, my friend, have seen my valley. You have seen me at my worst. I have failed as a leader at times or at least have come up short for my own personal expectations. You have seen me at some of my better moments. I know we have obligations. I know people are right to be upset or be demanding of us right now. Please help us. What are you doing in the face of people who might make it so that we might not have elections or might make it so that we do break things in this government that can never be fixed? One of the speakers who came into our caucus was one of the people who wrote the book ``How Democracies Die.'' Great nations, great civilizations that forget democracy don't necessarily die from external threats. They die from internal corruption. Think of the Roman Empire. Think of the Soviet Empire. It crumbled from its own corrupted failure to live up to its promises and ideals. We are at this moment. I am here to tell you, America, and to tell my friends and colleagues and anybody who cares to listen to a Senator from New Jersey that we are at that moment. We are past that moment. Every day, things are happening. In the 72 days of this administration, God, if there is not enough to upset you, to ignite you, to realize that maybe you and your family are not getting hurt but other Americans are. Our veterans are. Our seniors are. We have told their stories here. Over these last 21 hours, 22 hours, we have told their stories. People are getting hurt. People are afraid. People are worried. People I don't even agree with are getting disappeared. Law firms that I have known for my entire career--for my entire career--are being forced to kowtow to this President. Universities that should be the bastions of free speech, free thought, free enterprise, intellectual research, academic research, scientific research are getting torn up by cutting indirect costs. I have read stories of Ph.D. programs that are virtually being canceled, and from the best scientific minds not being able to build the state-of-the-art labs. The country that has led humanity in scientific invention is taking a blow. And Fareed Zakaria--I have read his article here, and he is saying that China is doubling down in investments in the universities as this President is cutting them--unless, of course, you come to the leader and make all of these commitments and meet all of these demands. There should be enough already. It should be enough already. So this is that moment John Meacham told me about. I want to try in the Senate--I know my colleagues--I see Tammy Baldwin; I see Chris Murphy; I see Angela Alsobrooks. I love you guys. I served side by side with you. I know your passion. I have heard your anger. I heard your fear. I heard how you want to fight for this country, but we are not enough. We can do demonstrations, we can do demands, we can try to do things differently. In fact, we must.

Mr. BOOKER. I will definitely yield to Tammy Baldwin, my friend and my colleague.

Mr. BOOKER. Thank you very much. I don't have that much gas in the tank, but hold on, let me say it right. I yield for a question while retaining the floor.

Mr. BOOKER. Yes.

Mr. BOOKER. Where you overshadow me, literally.

Mr. BOOKER. Yes.

Mr. BOOKER. We saw young artists, business people. You are this person who says these words over and over again, more than any Republican or Democrat: ``Buy American, buy American''; and created so many jobs in your State. We were in some packed restaurant. People packed not to see me as a special guest but to listen to your story. You are a trailblazer, too, in the Senate. You are doing things that our Founders did not expect, and you know that. And you want to stand up. I heard you in our caucus, I heard you in Schumer's leadership meeting stand up for people who are most marginalized, most looked down on, most talked about. I hear you, Tammy.

Mr. BOOKER. I won't respond to a question. I am going to read this for the 75th time. I will yield for a question while retaining the floor.

Mr. BOOKER. Yes.

Mr. BOOKER. People give a ship.

Mr. BOOKER. Make them, too, yes.

Mr. BOOKER. We are in the top 5 in New Jersey.

Mr. BOOKER. Yes.

Mr. BOOKER

Mr. BOOKER. Senator, I appreciate your question, but I just have to say this to you. You worked so hard with Senator Lankford, and one of the things I have to say--and I hope I don't hurt his politics by telling people how much I love Senator Lankford. We disagree fundamentally on a lot of issues, maybe that will help. We both are people, though, of faith. We just recently worked together in a massive--I think there must have been like a thousand people there, maybe 500 at least, at a National Prayer Breakfast event. He is such a man of character. What I like about him, I know his values because every day, he tries to be a good Christian. (Mrs. MOODY assumed the Chair.) And this idea of love thy neighbor or you are a stranger in a strange land--I just took a lot of pleasure watching you, my friend, whom I have known for the last 12 years, and sitting down in this honest, sincere negotiation. Let's be real. Everybody on your side of the aisle didn't agree with you, and everybody, before Trump's involvement, on his side of the aisle didn't agree, but you guys had the makings of a comprehensive bill that would have passed. I tell you also I came in here in 2013 right after the Gang of 8. They did the same thing. They got the bill out, and it died in the House. There are people in America, despite Lankford and you--who many people would put on opposite sides of the political spectrum--on these issues, they agree. Why do they agree, Senator Murphy? Because our economy is dependent upon immigration. You want to talk about a conservative-leaning group, Senate moderate Republicans, the national chamber of commerce will tell you that our economy will be crippled if we don't find a way to bring more people in legally to work on work visas. When I go to the tech community or the biotech community or the AI community or the community that is trying to go forward in quantum computing, all of them are saying this is crazy that we are not allowing the brightest minds on the planet--when they get here and get Ph.D.s and have things half of Congress can't spell, that we drop kick them out of the country. There are so many points of agreement. Take Dreamers, who people on both sides of the aisle held up as a group of people that are Americans in every way except for a piece of paper. I could go through everything in the immigration world we need to improve on, including the need to secure our southern border. I listened to you on this section, and I look at you, and I remember your frustration. You are standing up in front of our caucus saying: We are so close.