Illustration: Nigel Buchanan
When Senator Cory Booker stood up to make a speech on the U. S. Senate floor last March, he wanted to find a way to protest President Donald Trump’s second administration and his executive orders regarding health care and Social Security, while highlighting the challenges that New Jersey residents were facing as a result.
And he wanted to gain attention for his protest by breaking the record for the longest individual floor speech in the Senate. He did so by speaking for 25 hours and 5 minutes, with more than 300 million people watching on TikTok alone.
With his new book, Stand, Booker, 56, also tells the story of how his family came to live in suburban New Jersey and the redlining his parents faced as a Black couple trying to buy a house in the 1960s. At the kickoff event for his book tour, Booker will appear in conversation with special guest Jon Bon Jovi at NJPAC on Sunday, March 22.
This conversation has been edited and condensed for clarity.
New Jersey Monthly: So great to talk to you! Thank you for speaking to New Jersey Monthly.
Cory Booker: It’s so good to talk to you. I talk to lots of media, but this is my hometown magazine.
Congratulations on your wedding. How has married life changed you?
I didn’t expect marriage to have this big of an impact on me this immediately. I’m getting to experience a deeper joy than I’ve ever experienced. And, you know, there is something about making this profound commitment before your community and family and then jumping in, and what I’ve found after the jump is just this richer and deeper life of joy, commitment and grounding. And a woman who not only lifts me up, but also doesn’t let me take myself too seriously and keeps me anchored in a wonderful way. So I just feel very blessed.
Photo: Courtesy of Cory Booker/Paperboys
That’s wonderful. Are you going to go back and forth between Newark and Washington, D.C.?
I made a decision way back in 1998 that I would stay rooted in Newark. And the community has done so much for me—so that’s where I am. That’s where I live. I used to have a little crash pad in D.C. in a basement apartment. Alexis got me out of the basement and wanted me to have more space down there. But we live in Newark—and she just posted this on her Instagram—she just got her Jersey driver’s license. She’s devoted to New Jersey. I’m excited because she’s not from New Jersey; she grew up in D.C. and lived in L.A. for the last nine years before we moved in together in April 2025.
So she’s a Jersey girl now.
Yes, she has fallen in love with Jersey. She’s already met Bon Jovi and Bruce Springsteen, and she’s loving it.
Booker and Alexis Lewis tied the knot in November in Newark and then in Washington, D.C. Photo: Courtesy of Cory Booker/Paperboys
Are you taking her to your favorite Jersey spots?
Yes, she’s eaten in Hobby’s Deli (in Newark) and Tops Diner. She has fallen in love quickly with all the things that I love about Jersey.
I love Tops Diner!
I have a deep family connection to Tops and I’ve eaten so many meals there. Alexis and I go to Tops all the time, and she loves it.
I still haven’t been to Hobby’s Deli. I have to check it out.
Can we take you to Hobby’s?
Are you kidding? I would love that!
Let’s do it. You should have seen Alexis enjoying the food there! She loved the pastrami, and she’s Jewish, so to go to a Jewish deli is just amazing for her.
Let’s get to your new book, Stand. What made you want to write a book now?
What my parents taught me, is if you don’t stand for something, you’ll fall for anything. In America, we have great virtue. Our nation was founded not on a theocracy or a monarchy. Our founders…wanted to found a nation in the highest ideals of humanity. And I think our country has thrived when we adhere to those highest virtues. I fear that we’re in a time where not only are those virtues at risk, but people are starting to believe that the way you win is by abandoning your virtues and fighting darkness with darkness. And I wanted to write a book that was a tribute to the idea that American virtues are great and they’re strategic. They’re how we win. It’s how we overcome, and it’s not just how we survive, but it’s how we thrive as a nation.
Stand is out March 24 from St. Martin’s Press. Photo: Courtesy of Booker team
Let’s talk about when you delivered your record-breaking, 25-hour-plus, marathon speech on the Senate floor earlier this year to protest the Trump administration’s agenda. What drove you to do it, and what do you feel you achieved?
It was a time where I think so many of us were feeling a sense of dread, despair and defeat, where Donald Trump was doing things that really shook the foundations of our democracy. And I don’t think people knew how to fight back yet or how to stand for our principles against somebody that was doing so much to erode them. And I’ll never forget being back in Whole Foods in Newark, and someone I knew asked me, “Why aren’t Democrats doing more to fight back?” And I explained that we are in the minority.
And we talked some more, and he just got tired of my excuses and he said, “Where’s the guy that I voted for who did a hunger strike in the projects and rallied us to fight against those problems, or who lived in a mobile home, or who used to get up in the middle of the night to take on the machine and politics and won?” And so I went back with my team and I said, “We’re throwing out the business-as-usual playbook, and we’re going to try something different.”
And out of that came this idea to just disrupt the Senate and hope that we could galvanize the country, get people to focus on the issues, and focus on the people that were really struggling—people who were fearful that their health care was going to be cut, fearful that they were going to lose their Social Security services, fearful that the V.A. was going to lose thousands of workers that they depended upon. And so we said, ‘Let’s go to the floor and read letters and stories from Americans and highlight this problem and the challenges.’ We never imagined that TikTok would reach out to us and tell us that over 300 million people liked the video in the live stream.
So it definitely achieved what we wanted to do—focusing on Americans and igniting a lot of energy and activism.
I didn’t realize until I read your book that you wanted to break former Senator Strom Thurmond’s record of the longest speech, which was 24 hours and 18 minutes, when he was trying to block the Civil Rights Act of 1957.
Yes, I knew that was going to be another way to dramatize the moment, especially as a Black guy, to break that record. [Booker’s speech was 25 hours and 5 minutes long.]
That was amazing. How did you physically prepare for the speech? You weren’t able to leave the floor even to use the bathroom, right?
I knew I had to sort of do mind, body and spirit prep, so that I could physically get ready for the challenge. I fasted for three days and then didn’t drink more than water for more than a day beforehand, because I knew the biggest obstacle was, how do you not go to the bathroom? [He laughs.]
I don’t think most people could do that.
I just did a lot of meditation and prayer, and then I have to give it to my team, because they meticulously prepared more than a dozen full binders of really compelling testimony from people across the political spectrum, conservatives and Republicans and right-wing think tanks, who were writing about the unconstitutional nature of the things that Donald Trump was doing. I felt the meditation and prayer really helped.
What do you think is the most important thing for Democrats to focus on moving forward during the remainder of Donald Trump’s administration?
We’ve got to find creative ways to push back on what is violating our Constitution, our values and American decency. We need to stand up, not against him [President Trump], simply. It can’t be about what we’re against. We’ve got to start standing up for what we’re for. We are a nation of decency. We are a nation that stands up for the values and the ideals that have shaped Western democracy. We are a country that believes in inclusion, believes in respecting the rule of law, believes in loving your neighbor. And I think that we’ve got to get back to doing that. One of the chapters in my book is on creativity. I almost wish we were doing this interview next week, because we’re plotting the next thing we’re going do to try to continue with creative disruption.
You grew up in Bergen County, and your parents moved into a home in Harrington Park as part of the Fair Housing Council’s plan to fight discriminatory housing practices. What did that teach you about activism?
I am here today because of everyday New Jerseyans who saw things in their community that were not right and did extraordinary things to help others— to welcome the stranger, to love their neighbor. My parents would never let me forget that I grew up in one of the greatest towns in all of America, Harrington Park. They just would never let me forget that there were people that stood for us. There were people that literally fought for us, as Arthur Lesemann and others in the Fair Housing Council did. They stood up for the best of who we are, as a state and as a people.
Do you think growing up in suburban New Jersey changed the course of your life and your family’s life?
We have the best public school system in the country, and New Jersey should be proud of that. My parents [they were among the first Black IBM executives] looked for the highest-rated public schools in the area. They were drawn to Bergen County because of the extraordinary public school system that was there. They didn’t realize until they started visiting homes that Blacks were not living in the towns that had the highest-rated public schools.
When we got into the school system, the public school teachers were wonderful. I can name the people who literally were life-changing to me, like Mr. Walker. Those public school teachers went so above and beyond to help me, to inspire me. To stretch me to show up for me and my family. And the young people that were my peers that I’m still friends with today—it was the best peer group and the best public school. I was able to do everything, from theater and musical theater to sports and athletics. And, obviously, it was the sports and athletics that launched me to a full scholarship to Stanford.
Did the activists you met through your parents inspire you to move to Newark and run for council and mayor?
Yes, definitely. Look at people like Lee Porter [former executive director of the Fair Housing Council of Northern New Jersey] and a lot of the other Bergen County activists that my parents knew—they would reinforce this lesson. Like, you did not get here on your own. You drank deeply from the wells of freedom and liberty and opportunity. You can’t pay those blessings back; you’ve got to pay them forward. You’ve got to show the same level of commitment and sacrifice and realize the blessings you’re enjoying. And so I moved onto Martin Luther King Boulevard in Newark because I wanted to be a part of a great community struggling against unjust forces. And what I didn’t know, what I didn’t suspect, is that I went to Newark thinking I was going to be a helper, and quickly realized that Newark has given me infinitely more than I’ve been able to contribute back.
It is a city that embraced me, loved me, broke me down, built me back up, and saw things in me that I didn’t see in myself. Because I didn’t go there to run for mayor. I went there to be a nonprofit leader, and it was the community leaders there that pushed me into politics. In my Senate office, I have a big map of the Central Ward of Newark, the first community that ever elected me to anything, from the city council’s race. It was a map we used in my campaign headquarters, and I keep it up there and I still live in that area because I never want to forget the people who took a risk on me, who believed in me and saw a promise for me as a leader.
Photo: Courtesy of Booker team
Can you talk about some of your accomplishments as Newark mayor? More investment in the city and more parks? Do you feel like the city’s reputation improved from your time as mayor?
Yes, we reversed a 60-year trend in the city. The population was sinking for 60 years; by the time I was in my last year there, more people were moving in rather than moving out, and not only people, but investment was pouring in at record levels, billions of dollars of new investments. There was a housing crisis, yet we were able to double the amount of affordable housing, building new schools, the biggest parks expansion in a century, new supermarkets in food deserts, crime going down. I was very proud that we were the administration that turned around these historic trends and began to help with the recovery in Newark that people are witnessing with their own eyes now and is being led by Mayor Ras Baraka.
What are some of the most pressing issues facing New Jerseyans today?
That so many New Jerseyans feel like they’re struggling to make ends meet. That the cost of living is growing higher than their incomes. It’s getting harder and harder to afford mortgages and rents. It’s getting harder and harder to afford child care and health care. And I hear it all over the state that costs are going up, and the stress on families and young people who just want their shot at the American dream, but find it more and more unaffordable. I think this is urgent, and a crisis that’s only growing, not just in New Jersey, but beyond.
What do you think Mikie Sherrill’s win and the recent 11th Congressional District race say about how New Jerseyans are feeling about the country today—especially the presence of ICE in the state?
Mikie is a moderate Democrat who just thunderously won the governor’s seat. So we’re a big-tent party, and I’m excited about working with all of our delegation, and I’m hoping that we expand it. I’m hoping that we’re one of the states that helps gain more seats in the House of Representatives so that we can take back the House. I will say this: ICE is reckless and out of control in New Jersey. It’s doing things that violate all our values, whether you’re a Republican, Democrat or independent. There are for-profit, private companies that are in our communities, like the detention facility at Delaney Hall in Newark, that are violating our values. There are Republican-run towns like Roxbury where they don’t want ICE facilities that they’re proposing building there. And so I’m not going to approve another dollar to a reckless, dangerous, out-of-control agency that is hurting people in my state and hurting our economy and hurting our safety.
Are you planning to run for president again in 2028?
I’m running for reelection in November, and that is my focus. I have not written off the idea, but right now, I’m hoping that New Jersey will put their faith in me for another term. I’m proud that in the last six years, we’ve brought back more federal dollars to New Jersey than any six-year period in our state’s history. And I’m excited about the record we built, bringing home the bacon to New Jersey. And I say that as a plant-based eater. [He laughs.]
Let’s do some rapid-fire questions now. What’s the most Jersey thing about you?
Most of my life, my meals have been in New Jersey. The air that I breathe is New Jersey. So I think, if you check my DNA, it is that I am Jersey, through and through. If you cut me, I probably bleed Jersey.
Governor Sherrill told me that her most Jersey thing is that she likes big hair.
[He laughs.] I am jealous of Governor Sherrill’s hair.
What’s your diner order?
I will always start with a cup of black coffee wherever I go. That’s where I’ll start. And then maybe disco fries, or just fries. Since I became a vegan, I no longer do cheese on my fries.
What’s your favorite restaurant in New Jersey?
I love diners up and down the state. There are so many great restaurants, especially in the Ironbound [section of Newark]. But I’m most comfortable at a Jersey diner.
What’s your favorite vacation spot?
Since I’ve become a senator, I’ve really fallen in love with places like Cape May. But I’d also love to spend a long weekend in Atlantic City with Alexis, where we can see a good show and walk the Boardwalk. I just love it. Also, Asbury Park. I just the love the Shore.
The pair will be in conversation at NJPAC later this month about Senator Booker’s new book, Stand.
After a life-altering accident, O’Driscoll relearned how to walk, returned to the slopes and, soon after taking up ski racing, swiftly rose to the U.S. Para Alpine Ski Team.
