US Senator fights back tears as he breaks record with 24-hour Senate speech targeting Trump's agenda

Senator Cory Booker was left holding back tears after he broke the record with a whopping 24-hour long speech.

While the New Jersey senator unsuccessfully ran for president back in 2020, he managed to talk for more than 24 hours with hardly any breaks during his speech on the Senate Chamber floor.

He officially started his speech - which heavily criticised President Donald Trump and his administration's policies - at 7pm on Monday night (31 March) and was still talking at 19:20 on Tuesday evening (1 April).

Some 15 hours in, at 10am on Tuesday morning, he said 'I've got fuel in the tank, man' as he paced around the podium.

His speech has broken the previously held record set in 1957 by Democrat Strom Thurmond, with the original filibuster speech lasting 24 hours and 18 minutes.

Unbelievably, Booker didn't leave the chamber once - not even to take a bathroom break.

Booker began his speech by saying: "I rise with the intention of disrupting the normal business of the United States Senate for as long as I am physically able".

He is the first Black senator for New Jersey, and he began the 19th minute and 24th hour of his record-breaking speech by talking about the late civil rights leader John Lewis.

Upon realising he had broken the record, a visibly emotional Booker raised his eyes up to the ceiling, and placed one hand over his heart.

Fellow Democrats in the chamber applauded his efforts.

The 55-year-old senator explained: "All right, I want to go a little bit past this and then I'm going to deal with some of the biological emergencies I'm feeling."

Senator Cory Booker has broken the record for the longest speech given on the Senate Chamber floor (ROBERTO SCHMIDT/AFP via Getty Images)

"I don't know what John Lewis would say right now... but John Lewis would say something, he would do something. He wouldn't treat this moral moment like it was normal," Booker said.

In what he called 'America’s moral moment', Booker took aim at the Trump administration's 'complete disregard for the rule of law, the Constitution, and the needs of the American people'.

He said: "I rise tonight because I believe sincerely that our country is in crisis, I believe that not in a partisan sense, because so many of the people that have been reaching out to my office in pain, in fear, having their lives upended — so many of them identify themselves as Republicans."

He also criticised Elon Musk and what he called Trump's 'oligarchy'.

Booker insisted: "This is the people's house. It's Article One of the Constitution, and it's under assault! Our spending powers, our budgetary powers, the power to establish agencies like the Department of Education and USAID, it's under assault by a president that doesn't respect this document."

More than 60,000 people were watching the speech live-streamed on TikTok at one point.

He covered his heart with his hand when he realised he had broken the record (CBS)

To pass the time, he quoted song lyrics, messages from the Bible, poetry, and drew from other famous speeches.

He also read out messages from people who have been impacted by Trump's administration, including the account of a Canadian woman who was detained by immigration authorities for 12 days.

He struggled to contain his emotion while talking about their stories of hardship and the difficulties people have been facing.

The only time he took a break from speaking was to hear questions from fellow Democrats.

Chuck Schumer, the top Senate Democrat said: "Your strength, your fortitude, your clarity, has just been nothing short of amazing, and all of America is paying attention to what you're saying."

He returned to praise Booker when he broke the record and to tell him how proud he was of him.

The speech wasn't technically a filibuster - a method of speaking which is used to time out a vote - but he did manage to disrupt the chamber as they should have been seated at midday.