January 4, 2026

If one thing has become clear from Donald Trump’s first year back in office, it’s this: Democracy won’t defend itself. How Democrats respond right now will determine what happens in the midterms and in 2028. 

Sen. Cory Booker is smack dab in the middle of this fight. 

Earlier this year, he delivered the longest floor speech in Senate history — a 25-hour stand for democracy that has already become a defining moment of this era. Sen. Booker joins me to break down the story behind his marathon speech. He also shares what Democrats are getting right — and sometimes wrong — in confronting Donald Trump.

Marc Elias: Senator Cory Booker, welcome back to Defending Democracy.

Sen. Cory Booker: It’s really great to be here. And it’s not just a title — it’s what you do. I continue to be so grateful. You are one of the unsung heroes in this fight to preserve our democracy, our traditions, and not just justice, but frankly, decency as well. So I’m grateful for you, man.

Marc Elias: Thank you, Senator. And I’ve got to start by congratulating you on getting married. How’s it treating you so far?

Sen. Cory Booker: Seventeen or eighteen days in — and I highly recommend it. I still feel like I’m in a state of bliss. We had a really magical wedding.

Marc Elias: Did you plan it? Were you the event planner?

Sen. Cory Booker: I planned what she will admit was an epic proposal — I surprised the heck out of her. She wasn’t expecting it until the end of this year or next year, and I was very meticulous in the planning. But that was the last major decision I’ll make alone. When it came to the wedding, she gets all the credit for manifesting such a magical affair.

Marc Elias: Well, I wish you both the very best. You really deserve it — for everything you do and because you’re a genuinely wonderful human being. You were an incredibly accomplished student — Stanford, Yale Law School, Rhodes Scholar at Oxford — and along the way, you even became a Talmud scholar. You could’ve done anything. Why did you choose politics?

Sen. Cory Booker: The best way to make God laugh is to make plans for yourself. My heroes coming out of law school were not politicians — they were people like Bryan Stevenson and Marian Wright Edelman. I literally made a list of them and asked if I could shadow them. Then I saw this model of life through Geoffrey Canada, who started the Harlem Children’s Zone — moving into a tough neighborhood and building schools, daycare centers and housing — and I fell in love with that.

So I moved into a tough neighborhood in Newark — where I still live — and began making progress alongside tenant leaders. One day, they called me into a meeting and said, “City Hall is corrupt. They’re not serving us — and we want to fight them.” I said I’d help any way I could. They said, “Good, you’re going to be the nominee for city council.” I fought them on it — but they were persuasive. And next thing I knew, I was the youngest person ever elected to the Newark City Council. That’s how my elected life began...