WASHINGTON — In a rare public outburst on the Senate floor Tuesday, New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker took his Democratic colleagues to task, declaring his party “needs a wake-up call!”
Angrily screaming at two of his shocked Democratic colleagues, his words all but reverberating off the chamber walls, Booker blocked the passage of several bipartisan bills that would fund police programs, arguing that President Donald Trump’s administration has been withholding law enforcement money from Democratic-leaning states.
“This is the problem with Democrats in America right now,” Booker bellowed. “Is we’re willing to be complicit with Donald Trump!”
The surprise Senate spat over bills that have broad bipartisan support — mental health resources and other help for police officers — strikes at the heart of the beleaguered Democratic party’s dilemma in the second Trump era as they try to find a way back to power, and also their frustration as Republicans have pushed through legislation and nominations that they vehemently disagree with. Do they cooperate where they can, or do they fight everything, and shut down governance in the process?
“A lot of us in this caucus want to f—— fight,” Booker said with an expletive as he left the Senate floor after the exchange.
Nevada Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto, one of the two Democrats on the floor who tried to pass the law enforcement bills that raised Booker’s ire, said she had a different view.
“We can do both,” she said afterward. “Support our communities, keep them safe, and take on Donald Trump and his bad policies.”
Booker’s tirade began Tuesday afternoon when Cortez Masto tried to pass seven bipartisan bills by unanimous consent. But Booker objected to five of the seven bills, which would have directed resources to law enforcement agencies, arguing that the Trump administration is “weaponizing” public safety grants by canceling them in many Democratic-leaning states like New Jersey.
“Why would we do something today that’s playing into the president’s politics and is going to hurt the officers in states like mine?” Booker asked.
Things escalated from there, with Cortez Masto and Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., saying that Booker should have objected when the bill was passed unanimously out of committee. “This is not the way to go about it,” Cortez Masto said.
Klobuchar said to Booker: “You can’t just do one thing on Police Week and not show up and not object and let these bills go through and then say another a few weeks later on the floor.”
“I like to show up at the markups and I like to make my case,” Klobuchar said.
Booker responded with a booming tirade. “The Democratic party needs a wake up call!” he yelled, walking away from his desk and out into the aisle. “I see law firms bending the knee to this president, not caring about the larger principles,” he said, along with “universities that should be bastions of free speech.”
He added: “You want to come at me that way, you will have to take it on with me because there’s too much on the line.”
The arguments points to the tensions below the surface of the Democratic caucus as they head into important moments — both this week, as Republicans push to quickly confirm dozens of Trump administration nominees before the August recess, and this fall when Congress will have to pass bipartisan spending bills to avoid a government shutdown.
Democrats suffered a swift backlash from their base in the spring when Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., helped advance a Republican spending bill that kept the government open instead of forcing a shutdown. Schumer argued that shutting the government down would have been worse, and that they were both “terrible” options. It is unclear whether Schumer and Democrats will want to force a shutdown in the fall if Republicans don’t include some of their priorities in spending legislation.
Booker did not have specific advice for his colleagues beyond the need to fight harder. But other senators say they will have to find a balance.
Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut says he hears both things at home — “why can’t you all get along” and “thank you for fighting.”
“Both are absolutely necessary at this moment in history,” Blumenthal said.
