Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) knew he’d be battling time, and biology, when he took the Senate floor for his record-breaking speech this week. So he planned accordingly.
“My strategy was to stop eating,” he told reporters while exiting the chamber after his 25-hour, 5-minute address ended Tuesday evening. “I think I stopped eating on Friday, and then stopped drinking the night before I started on Monday. And that had its benefits and it had its really bad downsides.”
While his extreme preparation spared him from any unscheduled breaks, the New Jersey politician admitted the marathon monologue still took a physical toll.
“The biggest thing I was fighting was that different muscles were starting to really cramp up,” he said. “Every once in a while, they’d spasm or something.”
After wrapping his soliloquy, Booker sidestepped questions about whether he had additional safeguards in place (namely, adult diapers) during his daylong stand against former President Donald Trump. However, representatives later assured TMZ that everything was business as usual under his suit.
Booker was met with applause when his speech finally surpassed a record set by Sen. Strom Thurmond’s 1957 filibuster decrying the Civil Rights Act.
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Upon crossing Thurmond’s 24-hour, 18-minute threshold, he told his fellow politicians, “I want to go a little bit past this and then I’m going to deal with some of the biological urgencies I’m feeling.”
Once all was said and done, Booker debriefed with the press and then prioritized a long-awaited visit to the washroom.