Cory Booker Gives Rip-Roaring Speech Against Defunding the Police, Asks Unanimous Consent for ‘God, Country, and Apple Pie’

Michael LucianoAug 10th, 2021, 8:16 pm
 

Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) delivered a brief but highly animated speech on the Senate floor on Tuesday night against defunding the police.

Speaking in favor of amendment introduced by Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-AL), Booker gave a rousing riff in the otherwise snoozy Senate. The amendment, which ended up passing 99 to 0, eliminates federal funding to municipalities that defund the police:

Madam President! I am so excited! This is perhaps the highlight of this long and painful and torturous night. This is a gift. If it wasn’t [a] complete abdication of Senate procedures and esteem, I would walk over there and hug my colleague from Alabama.

And I will tell you right now, thank God, because there are some people who’ve said that there are members of this deliberative body that want to defund the police, to my horror. And now, this senator has given us the gift of finally, once and for all we can put to bed this scurrilous accusation that somebody in this great esteemed body would wanna defend the police.

So let’s all us – a hundred people – not walk, but sashay down there and vote for this amendment and put to rest the lies that I am sure I will see no political ads attacking anybody here over defund the police. And I would ask unanimous consent to add something else to this obvious bill. Can we add also that every senator here wants to us to fund the police, believe in God, country, and apple pie?

Booker yielded the floor and could be heard yelling, “Voice vote! Voice vote!”

Some Democrats have made it a point to distance themselves from calls to “defund the police,” which became a popular mantra among some progressives last year during protests after George Floyd was murdered by a Minneapolis police officer.

One critic of the movement is Democratic strategist James Carville, who believes his party lost traction among Black and Latino voters in the 2020 elections because of the “defund the police” sloganeering.

Shortly after his amendment passed, Tuberville boasted on Twitter that every Senate Democrat jumped at the chance to distance themselves from defunding the police.

Watch above via C-SPAN 2.

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Michael Luciano - Senior Editor

Mike is a Mediaite senior editor who covers the news in primetime.