NBC News:

Sen. Cory Booker set the record for the longest speech in Senate history Tuesday night in marathon remarks that began Monday evening and tore into what he called the Trump administration’s “grave and urgent” threat to the country.

Rachel Treisman and Alana Wise for NPR:

Sen. Cory Booker spent a full day standing on the Senate floor, delivering an impassioned speech in protest of the Trump administration’s policies.

Nik Popli, Time magazine:

For more than 25 hours, the New Jersey Democrat stood at the Senate lectern speaking against President Donald Trump’s policies in what may be the most dramatic and sustained public challenge to Trump’s agenda since his return to the White House.

Hunter Walker, in his lede for Talking Points Memo, contextualizes the historical significance:

Only two men have spoken on the floor of the U.S. Senate for more than 24 straight hours. One of them fought to keep Black people out of public life, the other was a Black leader who staged a landmark protest. 

Cory Booker’s feat of determination—his act of astonishing stamina, as the New York Times put it—surged him past the 68-year-old record set by a segregationist demagogue filibustering the passage of the Civil Rights Act.

Booker understood the significance:

“To be candid, Strom Thurmond’s record always kind of just really irked me — that he would be the longest speech, that the longest speech on our great Senate floor was someone who was trying to stop people like me from being in the Senate,” Booker told MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow on Tuesday night. “So to surpass that was something I didn’t know if we could do, but it was something that was really, once we got closer, became more and more important to me.”

As Booker noted in his speech:

I’m not here, though, because of his speech. I’m here despite his speech. I’m here because, as powerful as he was, the people are more powerful.

NPR, again:

Booker’s achievement stands in stark contrast to Thurmond’s lengthy filibuster aiming to deny Black Americans equal protections under federal law. Booker later told reporters that he had been “very aware” of Thurmond’s efforts since entering the Senate over a decade ago.

“Of all the issues that have come up, all the noble causes that people have done or the things that people have tried to stop, I just found it strange that he had the record,” said Booker, who is Black. “And as a guy who grew up with legends of the Civil Rights Movement myself, my parents and their friends, it just seemed wrong to me, it always seemed wrong.”

Heather Cox Richardson:

Thurmond spoke for 24 hours and 18 minutes, but unlike Booker, who used his time to make a powerful and coherent case for reclaiming American democracy, Thurmond filled time with tactics like reading from an encyclopedia.

Talking Points Memo: 

According to [Jeff] Giertz [Booker’s senior advisor and communications director], Booker began planning for the speech about a week ago. This required an extraordinary push from his staff. […] Those staffers had a few marathon nights of their own in the past few days as they put together the 1,164 pages in more than a dozen binders Booker used for his remarks.

Much of the initial coverage of Senator Booker’s feat has understandably focused on the length of the speech and its historical significance, and not on the content of the speech itself, which, from what I’ve read, is a tour de force. 

NBC News, again:

It was a cathartic moment for a vast swath of demoralized voters across the country, who tuned in amid hunger for some action by the opposition party beyond the traditions of business as usual.

Frank Luntz, quoted in The Hill:

“He struck the kind of tone that grassroots Democrats are looking for. He gave them a reason to fight. He gave them a reason to stand up and say, this is my country too,” Luntz told [NewsNation’s “On Balance”] anchor Leland Vittert.

“Of course, every Republican watching will say, ‘This is nonsense.’  But he is not speaking just to Republicans, he’s speaking to Americans, and what I saw over the last 25 hours absolutely blew me away,” he added.

Philip Elliott at Time magazine, under the headline “Cory Booker Reminds Democrats What Fighting Back Looks Like” : 

That, right there, is how it’s done.

Sen. Cory Booker, the New Jersey Democrat who has long been a believer that his party should not shy from a fight out of fear, held the Senate floor for more than 25 hours in a history-making show of defiance of President Donald Trump’s chaos-laced agenda. Booker, beginning Monday evening, owned the podium where he stood without any real break in a bold display that drew fellow Democrats to the floor to watch in admiration. They might have done well to take notes about how, even in the minority, their party still can find ways to inspire voters in the face of Trumpism. 

StillIRise1963 on Mastodon:

Cory Booker figured out a way to get the entire world to hear him. He worked hard to do it, put himself through an uncomfortable physical experience but he did it. He did it to make a dent, try to blow a hole. he got creative, sacrificed and got national and global attention for our plight. Don’t tell me what can’t be done. tell me what we can do.

In a moment when it feels like we’re powerless to stop the spreading roots of fascism, Cory Booker put his country above comfort to warn us about this regime, to exhort us to fight, in whatever ways we can, with whatever tools we have.

Booker closed by invoking John Lewis:

He endured beatings savagely on the Edmund Pettus Bridge, at lunch counters, on freedom rides. He said he had to do something. He would not normalize a moment like this. He would not just go along with business as usual. He said for us to go out and cause some good trouble, necessary trouble, to redeem the soul of our nation.

I am ready to cause some good trouble.