Cory Booker

Mr. BOOKER

Mr. BOOKER. To my dear friend, I yield for a question while retaining the floor. I thank you for being here. I thank you for your leadership. I thank you for what you stand for. I look forward to your question.

Mr. BOOKER. Yes.

Mr. BOOKER. I thank you for the question, my friend and my chairwoman. I did talk about this, but it is so worth repeating. At some point in the night, we covered Social Security, and we read story after story after story of senior citizens who are frightened and afraid that the President of the United States will stand at the joint address and attack Social Security and make fun of it with lie after lie after lie about millions and millions of people getting fraudulent checks when the people who do the fact-checking and even the Social Security folks themselves say that it is a minuscule number of people getting checks and usually it is an overpayment. But they didn't stop there. Elon Musk called it a Ponzi scheme. The richest man in the world and the most powerful man in the world-- himself a billionaire--are attacking the program that millions and millions of our senior citizens rely on. I read letters from people who said: Don't forget about the mental or disabled who rely on SSI. They were begging us to remember and speak their names and tell their stories. There is a lot of fear, a lot of terror, a lot of insecurity. We spoke about this on the floor, that the benefits are already being cut. What do I mean by that? Well, if you are cutting Social Security offices--as one of our colleagues said from New Hampshire--in a rural area, you are forcing people to have to drive 100 miles if they have a problem. They can't talk on the phone because the wait times on the phone--I read an article in the Wall Street Journal, which is no leftwing mag. It was talking about how the customer service is going downhill because of the cuts they are making, and now you are forcing seniors--we read letters from 85-year-olds, 90-year-olds, 93-year-olds. They are going to drive 100 miles? I read letters from Social Security workers who now work in inadequate spaces, with inadequate staff, unable to do the job they love. They are not leeches. They are not people who should be demeaned or degraded by the most powerful people in our land. They are public servants who love their jobs and want to serve seniors but now can't do it because they cut, cut, cut before they thought, thought, thought.

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

Mr. BOOKER. I cannot emphasize to you strongly enough, we decided to start this whole thing at 7 p.m. last night with Medicaid. We read story after story after story after story of people who are Medicaid beneficiaries who are terrified, who are afraid. If they cut $880 billion, if they diminish the cuts in any way to their services--they are holding together their lives in this fragile financial equilibrium, and one little tug of a transportation service, one little tug of a home healthcare giver, and it all crumbles. They are terrified and afraid. Some Americans are dealing with the greatest challenges--not of their own making. Some of them are working full-time jobs, and getting an injury causes an extraordinary amount of chaos to their lives. So, yes, I read from the people who are recipients. I read from the people who run hospitals--from rural hospitals, to urban hospitals, to level I trauma centers--who all said that if they cut hundreds of billions of dollars, it will affect them. I did something really important. I read from Republican Governors and Democratic Governors because I keep saying over and over: America, this is not right or left. It is right or wrong. It is not a partisan moment. It is an American moment. It is a moral moment. I read voices from Republicans specifically, Republican Governors in Medicaid expansion States. They have this trigger--you know this--many States, that when the funding from the Federal Government dips below 90 percent, boom, Medicaid expansion is over and millions of people are in financial crisis, in healthcare crisis. What is it going to take for us to say no with such a firm voice, such a chorus of conviction, thousands, hundreds of thousands of Americans, red, white, and blue, every State, saying: Do not do this for no good reason but to give the majority of your tax cuts to billionaires like Elon Musk. It makes no sense. Who are we as a country? These are not normal times. This is not usual. We should be standing up because I read the stories of Republicans who run hospitals, Republicans who are Governors, who all are saying: Don't do this. Don't do this.

Mr. BOOKER. Senator Padilla, I was teasing. I am not yielding yet, Senator Padilla. I was teasing that man over there named Bennet. He and I have known each other for years, but you and I have known each other for longer. I knew the Senator from Washington before I got here-- mutual friends. So these are three people who were friends of mine before we met in this institution. If I had Coons here, I would have all four. You, though, I knew you longer than Bennet, longer than the great Senator from Washington, and the chairwoman. We met in 1998, 1999, around then. We were both city council people. And a dear friend, the beautiful man who introduced us, told me before we walked into your office that you were a rising star, that you were a man of deep decency; that you were going to do extraordinary things in your career, and he didn't overstate the fact. You are one of my close friends, and I definitely yield for a question while retaining the floor.

Mr. BOOKER. I love you for that question, my friend. And I just want to talk about anger because I have been all over the place. I read these letters, and they make me sad. I read these letters, and they make me angry. I read these letters, and they make me embarrassed that we are a country where people have to rent their pride and beg for help because of the little, teeny modicum of support they get from a service like Medicaid. But I have been saying over and over again--as I have tried to learn from my elders, as I have tried to learn from the heroes I revere--that I learned from my parents anger is not a bad emotion. It is what you do with that emotion that is important. Does it consume you? Does it drive you to hate other people or do you allow it to fuel you? Because it was ferocious love that had ancestors of all of ours in this country make it through insults--no Irish need apply; the injuries of Japanese internments. It is what do you do with those feelings. You are not defined by what happens to you; you are defined by how you choose to respond. So I tell people, anger--if you are not angry, if you are not angry-- let that fuel you. Well, what about the heartbreak that I feel? Well, I get emotional sometimes because I read a letter and something in it makes me remember somebody I know or to feel the hurt of constituents begging for help, and it breaks my heart. But I tell you, if America hasn't broken your heart, you don't love her enough because there is so much heartbreak and fear and pain in a nation where people are seeing their economic hopes and dreams of maybe buying a home or having the money to help their kids with school or to meet their basic needs--where so many Americans are one flat tire, one $400 hit, and they are suddenly doing payday loans or having to struggle to find a way through. There is so much heartbreak in this country. Great love means you make yourself vulnerable to having that heartbreak. But the heart is a powerful tool that, even when it is broken, it still beats. What about people who are afraid? I get afraid sometimes. I think about this legislation: If it goes through, what is going to happen in my State? I know the hospitals. I know the recipients. But you are telling me: Look at our history. Is there anybody in American history that you revere that didn't face extraordinary fear, because you cannot have great courage without great fear. Fear is a necessary precondition to courage. And so you ask me, my friend, what can people do? I want to remind people, as I have said before on this floor, to remember the truth that I heard before I came here: that change does not come from Washington; it comes to Washington by the people who demand it. I said this earlier: Do you think that we got suffrage in this country because a bunch of men on this Senate floor right here put their hands in and said: Hey, fellas, on the count of three, women get the right to vote. Ready? One, two, three, go. No. That is not how it happened. It happened because of Alice Paul. She was a young, young person from New Jersey. She broke with the course of human events. Alice Paul--one of my greatest heroes--you know what she did? She caused a heck of a lot of good trouble, necessary trouble. She is the first American ever--young American, in her early twenties--the first American ever to protest in front of the White House. She broke with the older, more mature suffrage organizations and went to the White House and did what she called a silent protest. She held up signs quoting President Woodrow Wilson's own words about freedom and equality saying: Aren't they true for me? Like a great Black woman would later say: Ain't I a woman? Don't I deserve rights? You don't think she was afraid? Let me tell you how afraid she was. Hundreds came out to jeer her, blocking the street, and then they arrested her for obstructing public passage. And then what do you do with a strong, powerful woman? You say that she is crazy, and you throw her in an insane asylum, before Gandhi. Sitting in jail before Gandhi, Alice Paul, this young American from New Jersey, goes on a hunger strike. And they don't honor her hunger strike. They shove tubes down her throat, crack eggs into the tube, force-feeding her. And thank God for the First Amendment, which is under attack here in America; the freedom of the press, under attack here in America. Look at the dragging of the journalist, Jeffrey Goldberg, right now for doing what? Getting the highest security officials in the land, just showing them the laws that they were breaking. A journalist covered what Alice Paul did. She gets out of jail because of public outrage. She goes back to protesting in front of the White House, and Woodrow Wilson, the President of the United States, finally comes out and joins her in supporting suffrage. You don't think she was afraid, angry, heartbroken? But she did something different. She chose a new and unusual pathway to show that this is not the America I believe in. The poetry of Langston Hughes: America never was America to me, And yet I swear this oath-- America will be! The poetry of Langston Hughes: There's a dream in the land With its back against the wall. To save the dream for one, It must be saved for ALL. It is what you do with those emotions that matters. Does it call you to greater service? Does it call you to greater sacrifice? Does it call you to greater love? And let me say one more thing. As you were speaking, I just wanted to bring this up. You know I love history. And this is one of my favorite letters, Alex, my colleague Senator Padilla. It is one of my favorite letters in all of American history because an obscure, unknown American--obscure and unknown, would never have been known--writes a letter to a powerful, powerful man. This obscure American woman that nobody knows or would have heard of ever, if somebody didn't hear about her story and write a book--she would be gone, like most of the great heroes in American history that we don't know their names. It reminded me of the last healthcare debate when Donald Trump tried to take away the ACA and how many amazing, heroic people who I don't remember their names but rose up and said: No, no, no. They got three of my colleagues--McCain, Murkowski, and Collins--to change their vote on this floor and stop healthcare from being stripped away from 20 million Americans. Well, here is what I mean. It is not the powerful people with titles and celebrity and offices and billions of dollars that have ever shaped this country. What shapes this Nation is hard-working, determined Americans who say: I am going to redeem the dream of America. I am going to heal the soul of this country. I am going to demand that we do better, that we rise higher, that we make change happen. What can you do, that you ask, if you are a young person? I love this letter. It is written by Frederick Douglass to an unknown person that would have never been heard of if it wasn't for this book. And he writes to his friend: I am glad to know that the story of your eventful life has been written by a kind lady, and that the same is soon to be published. You ask for what you do not need-- Frederick Douglass writes-- when you call upon me for a word of commendation. I need such words from you far more than you can need them from me-- He says to this unknown woman-- especially where your superior labors and devotion to the cause of the lately enslaved of our land are known as I know them. The difference between us is very marked-- Said the great Frederick Douglass, one of the most known people. He was the most photographed man, period, in the 1800s. Most that I have done and suffered in the service of our cause has been in public, and I have received much encouragement at every step of the way. You, on the other hand, have labored in a private way. I have wrought in the day--you in the night. I have had the applause of the crowd and the satisfaction that comes of being approved by the multitude, while the most that you have done has been witnessed by a few trembling, scarred, and foot-sore bondmen and women, whom you have led out of the house of bondage, and whose heartfelt, ``God bless you,'' has been your only reward. The midnight sky and the silent stars have been the witnesses of your devotion to freedom and of your heroism. Excepting John Brown--of sacred memory--I know of no one who has willingly encountered more perils and hardships to serve our enslaved people than you have. Much that you have done would seem improbable to those who do not know you as I know you. It is to me a great pleasure and a great privilege to bear testimony for your character and your works, and to say to those to whom you may come, that I regard you in every way truthful and trustworthy. He gave his legitimacy to this book project, Frederick Douglass, to then an unknown woman who did the most heroic things. Her name was Harriet Tubman. How did we get here, America, to this privileged place? Well, we got here because of that incredible infrastructure project that this place didn't fund called the Underground Railroad, where Black Americans and White Americans broke laws, did civil disobedience to stop slavery. How did we get here? We got here because young 20-somethings got up on a bridge named for a grand wizard of the KKK, named the ``Edmund Pettus Bridge.'' We got here because they marched. We got here because they were beaten. We got here because they bled. And I may know one or the two of the people on that bridge. I may know one or two of their names. But I am in this body because of them. How did we get here, America? We got here because of people whose names I don't know who fought at Seneca Falls. How did we get here? We got here because of people whose names I don't know who stood at Stonewall. We got here because of people's names I don't know who were there at Selma. This is the answer to your question. This is an American moral moment. This is a question of where do we stand for healthcare? where do we stand for Social Security? where do we stand for VA benefits? where do we stand for our American neighbor when the call and commandment of every faith in our land is to love your neighbor? What is the quality of our love, America? Now is the time to get angry, but let that anger fuel you. Now is your time to get scared for what is happening to your neighbors, and let that fear bring about your courage. Now is your time to stare at despair and say: You will not have the last word because I am going to stand up, and at least I can give one person hope in this country. Can I give one person hope in this country? So what do I want from my fellow Americans? Do better than me. Do better than we, in this body. We are flawed and failed people. I see people showing up at our townhalls, yelling at us, Democrat and Republican: Do more. How are you letting this happen? Well, I hate to tell you, we are doing all that I can think of. This is why I am standing here trying to give voice to those people. But what is more needed from now is less people sitting on the sidelines, less people being witnesses of American history and more people determined to make it, to make history, to call to the conscience of this Nation, to say: I will not stand for another American to lose their healthcare for a billionaire. I will not stand for another veteran who is dedicated to stopping the suicide of other veterans to lose their job. I won't stand for the air quality in my community to be made worse because they are letting polluters pollute more. I won't stand for the collective assaults on the Constitution by a man who even the highest Judge in our land, a Republican-appointed Judge, said: Stop threatening and bullying other branches of government. When is it going to be enough? My voice is inadequate. My efforts today are inadequate to stop what they are trying to do. But we the people are powerful. We are strong. We have changed history. We have bent the arc of the moral universe, and now is that moral moment again. It is the moral moment again. God bless America. We need you now. God bless America. If you love her, if you love your neighbor, if you love this country, show your love. Stop them from doing what they are trying to do. And for almost 20 hours we have laid out what they are trying to do-- 20 hours. I want to stand more, and I will, but I am begging people: Don't let this be another normal day in America. Please, God--please, God--don't let them take Medicaid away from 10, 20, 30, or 40 million Americans who desperately need it. Don't let them do it.

Mr. BOOKER. I will yield to my dear friend whom I owe an apology. The last hours of your birthday, as I was preparing for this, I realize we have a special bond. Before I yield, I want to tell this guy--

Mr. BOOKER. Hold on. I yield, but I retain the right to the floor. So I yield, but I retain the right to the floor.

Mr. BOOKER. I yield, but I retain the right to the floor.

Mr. BOOKER. Yes, sir.

Mr. BOOKER. Well, as we were talking earlier, the firings are adding up. It is now going to be 80,000 people from the VA alone, a disproportionate number of veterans. So that is a rollback in service. We already know that veterans in all of the government Agencies represent about 24 percent of the government workers we are talking about that are getting fired. And these are veterans--as I read their stories--that just want to keep serving their country from the national parks to serving their fellow veterans and helping them get healthcare. We are seeing people that get exemplary reviews and then they are fired as probationary workers under the only way they can, according to laws, to say that they are a bad Federal worker. Then they get insult on top of it when the highest--the most powerful man in the world and the richest man in the world, Trump and Musk, come together and call the guy making $45,000 serving other veterans, they call him a leech; they call him a parasite. And so I hear what you are saying. Like, these are folks that I read their stories. They did things that few Americans would do. They went overseas and served in combat. We had one of our dear friends here who lost her legs in combat, but she stands taller than most all the people in this body. These are the people that are so ingrained in their bodies and minds and souls to serve America, to love America. This President calls somebody like John McCain a sucker--the guy who dodged the draft. So I hear what you are saying, and one of the things I heard you saying is it makes no sense. Nobody came to the Veterans' Affairs Committee in the Senate who actually approves the resources, establishes the Agencies, and should have the say--according to this document, this civically sacred text, our Constitution. So what are you going to say to them if you don't even know what the plan is, you can't even explain to us what is your plan to making the VA system more efficient. Here is the other thing. We passed in this body some of my favorite Senators like Jon Tester, whom I miss so much--maybe I just miss bumping into the guy because he was the only person in the Senate who let me run hallway all the way and hit him. I used to joke that it was this test to see what happens when the unstoppable force beats the immovable object. He is a void in this place, but he stood for that PACT Act. He has the most fiery speeches, and finally we got that bill passed. We had to add tens of thousands of jobs because of the increased hundreds of thousands of people that were affected from these burn pits or from other challenges, and now we are cutting back 83,000 employees. Patty Murray said something that affected me in my first weeks as a Senator when I, in New Jersey, sat down with women veterans, and they told me how long they had to wait for gynecological care. So what is this administration doing in its 83,000 cuts? Are they going to improve services to our female veterans? I don't believe it. I don't believe it. Show me I am wrong because we have an article I duty: oversight; checks and balances. Are we doing that right now? One of the worst things I have seen happen in national security--and by the way, there are national security screwups on both parties. Nobody has a monopoly on this. Let's not be overly partisan here. But weeks ago, our--who are supposed to be the pros and set the example, our national security leadership was using a commercial app to communicate classified documents, and they had it on disappearing messages so they are violating the law of the land called the Preserving Public Records Act. Now, I have heard from Republicans and Democrats. This is outrageous. There should be an investigation. We should be asking commonsense questions. Was this a pattern and practice of communication? How many other things that are classified have you been communicating about? There is a lot of really important questions that you should have to answer to, but where are the hearings, folks? I just wonder why this body is shrinking from the articulated duties that we all raised our hands and said we would defend and preserve this Constitution and what it says we should do, what it says our jobs should do. But you are Senator. I am a Senator. I can't tell you what the cut in the VA plan is. I can't tell you. They haven't come in here and told us. Are we doing our job? I can't tell you are we preserving and fighting for national security after one of the biggest national security scandals I have seen since I have been here. They don't have providence in a partisan way, but they should answer for it. Are we doing our constitutional duty? What about the administration that is ending the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau, ending that Agency, ending the Department of Education? Do they have the right to do that according to this document? No. Are we saying: Hey, we are going to stand up for the people who preserved this document? No. Thank God for the article III branch of government because they are being dragged into court, and Republican- appointed judges and Democrat-appointed judges are saying you can't do it. Do you know what Trump is doing? He is ignoring the courts, and then he is demonizing the judges. You know that threats on judges in America, that threats have gone up 400 percent. You know, I had a Federal judge--God bless her--where somebody thought they were going to her house. They did. She wasn't home, and they murdered her son and shot her husband. And Trump is out there threatening judges, dragging them on Twitter or X or whatever he is calling it now. This is America. I know people on both sides of the aisle. We believe in common decency. We believe in respect. We believe that the highest office in the land should represent the best of our values not the worst, not a guy we wouldn't even let babysit our kids. So I don't know what is going on with veterans, but I am not going to sit by and do nothing. That is why I am standing here. That is why I read the voices of so many veterans. Let's elevate the voices of the Americans who are being hurt and harmed. Let's talk for them if they can't talk for themselves. Let's tell them that we see you, we love you, and that all of us, we are going to fight for you.

Mr. BOOKER. From you, my friend, who doubled the number of vegans in the Senate, I yield for a question while retaining the floor. Thank you for being here.

Mr. BOOKER. You can't engage in a dialogue. The Parliamentarian is going to stare me down. You can ask me questions.

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

Mr. BOOKER. Right.

Mr. BOOKER. Yes.

Mr. BOOKER. My friend and colleague, I am hoping that we can figure out thousands of ignition points where Americans can stand up and do that call to their fellow Americans to do more. I am not upset at the folks that have been saying to Democratic Senators and House Members, and to me, challenging me--I have talked to so many of my constituents who said: You have got to do more. And all of us have to interrogate ourselves because, like I said at the very beginning of this--at 7 p.m. on Monday night, I said: We have to say to history where we stood--where we stood when they were coming after our constitutional principles, where we stood when they were threatening judges to impeach them for making just decisions, where we stood when they were taking law firms and threatening their business unless they came and kowtowed to the great leader, where we stood when they were disappearing people from America without due process that even Antonin Scalia said they should have. Where were you when they came after the healthcare of the disabled, the healthcare of the children, the healthcare of the expectant mothers, the healthcare of seniors? Where were you when they attacked veterans, laying them off for no justifiable reason and attacking the VA services that they rely on? Where were you when we turned our back on Ukraine? Where were you when we turned our back on our alliances? Where were you when they took the economy down with tariffs, when they took the economy down by threatening it so consumer confidence drops? Where were you? How many things are going on before we answer the question, as it says in Hebrew, Hineini. Hineini. Behold, Lord, here I am. And so I confess that I have been imperfect. I confess that I have been inadequate to the moment. I confess that the Democratic Party has made terrible mistakes, that it gave a lane to this demagogue. I confess we all must look in the mirror and say we will do better. And it is not just fighting ourselves on what we are against. We, the next generation, as the baby boomers are leaving the stage--the last baby boomer President--we have to say that we are going to redeem the dream. We are going to dream America anew. We are going to start talking about bold things that don't divide people, that unite people--bold things that excite the moral imagination of a country to do better, to go higher, to call us together. This is the time when new leaders in our country must emerge. I am not talking about Senators. I am talking about citizens. This time of despair and darkness doesn't demand more darkness. We don't need to demean and degrade people who disagree with us. This is a time for us to do something bigger than that. Do you think Martin Luther King in Birmingham hated Bull Connor or said: I am going to defeat this guy by bringing bigger dogs and bigger firehoses. No. But he did say: We are going to be so creative that we are going to inspire the moral imagination of the Nation. We are going to call to the conscience of the country. We are going to excite them about who we could be. When he went to the March on Washington he didn't stand there and complain about the demagogues. Listen to his speech. He didn't stand there and demean and degrade the Governor of Alabama. He didn't stand there and talk down to Bull Connor. No, he stood before the American people and said: It is not what you are against; it is what you are for. I have a dream. And now it is our generation. We have to redeem the dream. We have to excite people again. He, in the highest office of our land, wants to divide us against ourselves, wants to make us afraid, wants to make us fear so much that we are willing to violate people's fundamental rights, we are willing to go after the speech on college campuses, to go after law firms, to go after freedom of the press. Don't let him do that. Don't become like him. Be an American that says: I look to the future, and I am excited. Yes, things are tough right now. They are hard. They are scary. They are hurting. But we can overcome this. Our American history, if it is nothing else--American history, if it is nothing else--it is a perpetual testimony to the achievement of impossible things against impossible odds. We are a nation that is great, not because of the people that are trying to whitewash our history, to remove great people, Native Americans, Black people, and women from our military websites. I don't want a Disney vacation of our history. I don't want to whitewash history. I don't want to homogenize history. Tell me the wretched truth about America because that speaks to our greatness. And so what do I want the people to do? It starts with us, man, and you are doing it. I see the courage of my colleagues. We are doing it, but we have to do more. And I am sorry. I am not going to be a politician that is going to say: We are going to do more for you. I am going to be a politician, I am going to be a leader that demands more from America.

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

Mr. BOOKER. The mere fact that you can quote Alexis de Tocqueville-- you have got me. You have me.

Mr. BOOKER. I remember being right here in this seat watching you.

Mr. BOOKER. Yes.

Mr. BOOKER. Yes, I miss Elijah.

Mr. BOOKER. Yes.

Mr. BOOKER. I don't know. I am finding it from my colleagues right now. I am finding it from my friends. I am finding it from their heart and their commitment, and I am finding it from the people whose names and stories we are reading. You know I appreciate your friendship. I am so happy you are my colleague now. And I believe that our future, our tomorrows--as bad as things seem, I still believe our tomorrows are better than our yesterdays. I know you share it.