Cory A. Booker
Senator for New Jersey · Democratic · United States
“They have developed over recent years more power and more leverage, and that is a scary thing for the NCAA. I want to be honest about one point--about who creates a disproportionate amount of that value. That is actually Black athletes.”
Senate28 September 2026Source ↗
“The protections expire in 4 to 9 years, depending on the size of the program. The NCAA's antitrust exemption is permanent. The protections for women's and Olympic sports are only temporary. And athletes are noticing. Listen to Caitlin VanderKlok, a cross-country athlete at the University of Tennessee.”
Senate28 September 2026Source ↗
“In most States, it is the highest paid State employee. In 2025 alone, 15 fired coaches secured buyouts worth nearly a quarter of a billion dollars. That is $250 million paid to coaches not to coach. You hear people running around here lobbying, saying: Oh, we have a financial crisis in college sports.”
Senate28 September 2026Source ↗
“That should tell you everything you need to know about who this bill protects. Listen to former senior Justice Department officials, including a former principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General, a former Acting Associate Attorney General, and a former Acting Assistant Attorney General for the Antitrust Division.”
Senate28 September 2026Source ↗
“Madam President, I am so grateful to be recognized. It is amazing how for more than 14 years in this place, I was trying to get Congress to step in to do something to help athletes, but the answer was no, no, no.”
Senate28 September 2026Source ↗
“People in this body that say it protects women's and Olympic sports are lying to you by not telling you the whole truth; that those protections expire. Listen to Meghann Burke, executive director of the National Women's Soccer League Players Association.”
Senate28 September 2026Source ↗
The complete record
1,331 held · 211 searchable for Cory A. Booker. The searchable lines are below in date order, each linked to its source. Free to read, in full, without an account. Page 4 of 5.
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“We are a nation of laws; that no one, be they the President, be they a Senator, be they an officer in the street, no one is above the law. ____________________”
Senate14 July 2026Source ↗
“This is an inflection point in our democracy, another one that seems to be coming with increasing speed and rapidity. We make this presumption that this Nation sits upon a bedrock that will never crumble. Well, I am telling you, I am not afraid of any nation outside of our own. What I am afraid of is the corrosive, cancerous corruption of a nation who swears an oath to ideals but does not fulfill them in their duty. I don't know what to say when we have another dead person, when we are seeing people in our streets, law-abiding, loving their families, and they are asking those questions: Who are we in this Nation? I pray that this Senate changes course, and instead of silence they answer with a commanding conviction that we are the United States of America.”
Senate14 July 2026Source ↗
“Every government is asked whether it will preserve the principles it inherited. This is our moment. This is why the Constitution envisioned this body. And yet we are failing in that duty to provide oversight, accountability, checks and balances. And the consequence is the repeated tragedy within this Agency of seeing people killed on our streets. We owe these families, we owe our democracy an independent investigation. I demand that from my colleagues. I call upon an independent investigation, and I should be joined by a chorus of my colleagues with the conviction that this is not right or left. This is why we were elected in the first place and why we put our hands on our Bible and swore an oath to that Constitution. I am anguished. I am angry.”
Senate14 July 2026Source ↗
“We are a democracy, and the very mission of this body is to hold the Executive accountable when they are taking Executive action, especially when they are using the greatest power that could be entrusted into a government that is to take lives, to kill people. To minimize that, to watch people die in our streets without accountability or transparency is a direct assault on the foundational ideals of who we are as a people. ``Are we OK,'' he asks. Are we OK? This is the revolutionary idea of America. No person, not a President, not Senators, not judges, no person is above the law--not a Federal agent in an unmarked car and undistinguished uniform with a gun in their hands firing through a window and killing someone. Power without accountability is not strength. It is the beginning of tyranny.”
Senate14 July 2026Source ↗
“It is not a speech about whether we support strong borders. I do, unequivocally and firmly. America must have secure borders. It must enforce its immigration laws. America must protect all of its communities from any threats. The first words of our founding document talked about forming a government of common defense and the safety and security of our communities. But we can never ever abandon the fundamental precept that this is a democracy, and therefore we must have accountability. We are not an autocracy. We are not an authoritarian government. We are not a monarchy where we have Kings and Queens above question, above accountability, and above the law.”
Senate14 July 2026Source ↗
“Are we OK when we entrust the extraordinary power, when we entrust that power and yet the people in power face less accountability to the people that put them in power? Are we, as a nation, becoming so numb that the death of law-abiding people by agents does not motivate us to ask: Why is this happening in America, under what justification? Are we shrinking from our duty as Americans to value every life and understand that injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere? I don't think we are becoming numb, but I worry that the Senate is consciously looking away; that we are not doing our sworn constitutional duty. Our Founders, in their genius, decided to set up a government with checks and balances.”
Senate14 July 2026Source ↗
“It is not just dangerous to the horrible deaths of the names that I have mentioned. But it is dangerous to our democracy. But perhaps those who have passed under these circumstances, we should listen to them. Perhaps we should listen to their last words. Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, his last words: They are killing me. Joan Sebastian Guerrero, his last words: I tried to stop. Nicole Renee Good, her last words: I'm not mad at you. Alex Pretti, perhaps words that should penetrate us now, his last words: Are you OK? Now, I thought about those words: Are you OK? ``Are you OK?'' And that is the question. Are we OK? Are we OK? Are we OK when fathers are killed on their way to work? Are we OK when systems of oversight have virtually disappeared?”
Senate14 July 2026Source ↗
“We get body cameras still absent, as we saw in these last two murders, as if we can't afford them. More money, more power, less accountability, less scrutiny, less oversight--this is not conservative government. The fiscal conservatives on both sides understand that you don't shovel money toward an organization, outstripping most law enforcement Agencies in the entire United States of America, whether those that are investigating drug trafficking or insurance fraud or illegal arms smuggling. No, $200 billion--the most spent for ICE--and you get less accountability for those taxpayer dollars and then when tragedy strikes, less accountability for actions of horror. This is dangerous, not just to families that are being pulled over and detained and thrown onto pavement.”
Senate14 July 2026Source ↗
“Right now, we are seeing with ICE in America, this Congress appropriated billions upon billions of dollars, handing this Agency unprecedented sums of taxpayer money but also in that process allowing oversight to be stripped away, less accountability. Think about this: We have appropriated to this one law enforcement Agency over $200 billion, more than the FBI, the ATF, the DEA, the Marshals Service, the Bureau of Prisons, Secret Service, TSA, and the Coast Guard combined. ICE in America has a bigger budget than those eight law enforcement organizations, billions upon billions of dollars, over $200 billion. And yet what do we get? Greater accountability? Greater oversight? No. We get lowering of hiring standards. We get reduced oversight. We get internal watchdogs removed or weakened.”
Senate14 July 2026Source ↗
“So many of the honorable officers that I dealt with every day as a mayor, they want the truth. In fact, those incredible officers demand it because accountability is not the enemy of law enforcement. It is what gives law enforcement its strength and its true moral authority. It is what gives the laws of this land and those who conduct them their very legitimacy. To not investigate, scrutinize, have transparency and accountability when tragedy strikes, erodes the very foundation of our democracy. Amidst the tragedy of those depths, we see our very constitutional principles at stake, and this is where Congress has an obligation.”
Senate14 July 2026Source ↗
“Investigations were literally shut down by our Justice Department. Think about that. The highest law enforcement officers in the land shut down an investigation into those murders. Those investigations were not completed. They did not follow where the evidence led. They were simply stopped, halted. Justice denied. Every police officer--and I have worked closely with many of them-- every police officer knows that when deadly force is used, there must be scrutiny, not because we assume any guilt but because accountability protects everyone in our democracy. It protects the public; it protects the officers; it protects the confidence in the very idea of the rule of law upon which our country and our Constitution is built. No badge and no police officer I know fear transparency.”
Senate14 July 2026Source ↗
“I worry that we are becoming accustomed to things that should horrify us, that we are becoming so exhausted, so polarized, so overwhelmed that another death just becomes another headline, another investigation, another news cycle, another family left to grieve. The greatest danger to democracy is not simply injustice; it is when injustice no longer shocks us, no longer moves us, no longer compels us to meet that injustice. It is a poverty--a poverty of empathy, a poverty of concern. It is a tragedy that in the midst of tragedy, our hearts stop breaking, when outrage gives way to indifference, because indifference is where accountability goes to die. And this is not the first time. Earlier this year, Renee Good was killed, and Alex Pretti was killed. American citizens. Families forever changed. Lives forever interrupted. And what happened?”
Senate14 July 2026Source ↗
“He was a husband, a father of American children, a man who spent decades in this country building a life, supporting his family, contributing to his community, paying taxes. On his way to work, Federal agents in unmarked vehicles began following his van. Moments later, an officer fired through the passenger side window, and Lorenzo stumbled from that vehicle. Agents forced him to the ground, and he died right there on the pavement. Yesterday morning, it happened again. Joan Sebastian Guerrero. He was 26 years old and also a father. He was authorized to work in our country, has a Social Security number. On his way to work, another shooting. Another grieving family. Another life, precious life, gone. I stand here today because I am deeply worried about something so fundamental to our country that is now in crisis.”
Senate14 July 2026Source ↗
“Our Nation was founded on the belief that all are created equal, endowed by their Creator with inalienable rights, and among them are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. But today, I am rising because of my growing concern that we are not living up to those ideals, and the consequences of that are that we are normalizing something so utterly tragic. Two more people have fallen in our Nation. Two more families are grieving in our Nation. And I refuse to believe that this is simply the cost of doing business in the United States of America. Last Tuesday morning, Lorenzo Salgado Araujo climbed into his work van like millions of Americans do all over our country every single workday. He wasn't headed to a protest or a political rally. He wasn't headed into conflict. He was headed to work. He was 52 years old.”
Senate14 July 2026Source ↗
“This is a question right now, with the events of recent days, where we must ask that question--who are we as a nation? What do we stand for? This is a question that is larger than politics, larger than left or right, larger than immigration policy, larger than any one party. It is a question that really asks about the immense power that we entrust to our government and is that still constrained. Do we still live under a Constitution where, by our very definition as a nation, we should have accountability and transparency; that when we do things like pledge allegiance to a flag, it is not simply the banner, but it is also the values, this idea that every single life has worth. Think about these conceptions of humanity that we put forth 250 years ago--that we are all created equal.”
Senate14 July 2026Source ↗
“Mr. President, I think there are profound moments in the course of our 250 years when our Nation was at an inflection point, and I believe this is one of those inflection points where, as we look at the events in our Nation, we don't just ask the question ``What is happening?'' we have to ask the question ``Who are we becoming?'' There are moments where this question of ``Who are we as a nation?'' has to come with the understanding that every generation of Americans has to define themselves.”
Senate14 July 2026Source ↗
“President? Without objection, I would like to make that known.”
Senate18 June 2026Source ↗
“Senate Pages Mr. President, I want to note something to you, sir. The pages that are serving right now--they seem great. They have been here for, what, 10 days, sir? I don't know if you recognize the fact, though, that as admirably and deserving, as kind and generous as they are, they are kind of half-pages because they are not taking class. They are classless pages. I would like the Record of the Senate to remark that they have no class. I mean that in a literal sense. I mean, they are very polite people. But I just wanted to add that into the Record, today, sir. Do you agree, Mr.”
Senate18 June 2026Source ↗
“Every interaction, every conversation, every person you encounter, making them feel seen, making them feel valued, making them feel worthy, that is the legacy we can leave. Indeed, to Gloria, her granddaughter Sarah, that is the legacy she is carrying forward, this understanding that in most days of our lives, the biggest thing we can do will most often be a small act of kindness, decency, and love. If you live every day of your life with that kindness, with that decency, with that love, you will make a change in this world that you cannot even fully appreciate or understand. That is the last 13 years of Sarah Rojas--showing up every day, showing up fully herself, with unapologetic empathy, with courageous compassion, with remarkable consistency.”
Senate18 June 2026Source ↗
“You have a rock star mom--maybe not known by millions, but to all who know her, she is a star that illuminates not just your life but all of our lives. Four years ago, Sarah lost a very important person in her life, and I want to honor them as well: her grandmother Gloria Rojas. Again, these names like ``Joy'' and ``Gloria'' say so much about the people. Gloria was this extraordinary trailblazer. It is another reason why I know how she got to be so great--how Sarah did. Gloria was the first Latina broadcast journalist in New York. She was a big deal. But she once said that the big news stories are not always the most satisfying; it is the little stories where you can really make a difference. It is this idea that is such a human thing. It is this idea in life that is just so true, that the smallest things we do often matter the most.”
Senate18 June 2026Source ↗
“I have a sibling--two siblings, actually, and they are also part of that circle of support. I want to thank her for that. I thank them all, all of her family, for support, for encouragement, for the latitude when she has had to work late hours, for showing up when I have had to take her away from perhaps the center of her life, which is Sadie. Sadie, I hope one day years from now, somebody will show you this video. I don't know if you will understand it in the present moment, but I hope you are going to look back and hear what I say to you, Sadie. Sadie, you should be proud of your mom. You should be in awe of her. Sadie, your mother is one of the more phenomenal people I know, and that makes me confident you are going to be phenomenal, too, Sadie.”
Senate18 June 2026Source ↗
“Sarah has grown as a person, and she has grown as a leader. Thirteen years being witness to her blossoming is a privilege. I want to thank not just her today on the floor, but I want to thank her incredible family. I want to thank her husband Nick--not just for rescuing her from those days when she was a single woman; I want to thank her husband Nick for being the rock in her life that has made her stronger for us all. I want to celebrate her parents Joy--such an appropriate name--and Chris, whom I want to wish a very happy Father's Day to. Chris and Joy, thank you for raising such an extraordinary child. I love what James Baldwin said. He said that children are never good at listening to their elders, but they never fail to imitate them. Sarah is who she is because of her parents. Her sister Emily, I am grateful for as well.”
Senate18 June 2026Source ↗
“I get recognition and calls to do better. But I stand strong through it all because of the people around me, the people who encourage me, who keep my feet on the ground, the people who don't let my positive press get to my head or my negative press get to my heart. Sarah has been one of those great ballasts in my life--keeping me balanced, keeping me grounded, keeping me inspired and encouraged. She has superpowers, to be honest with you. One of them is her empathy. One of them is her capacity to care. One of them is her ability to make everybody around her feel her love. I am devastated, actually, really sad that Sarah is leaving DC, although a consolation I get is that she is going to be in Jersey. I love the fact that she is going home. Watching Sarah for 13 years of her life--I have seen her get better every day.”
Senate18 June 2026Source ↗
“She has been a special assistant to the director of special projects, acting communications director twice, to legislative director, to deputy chief of staff, to one of my most trusted counsels. She has played every position imaginable. To her colleagues on my staff, she is that leader everyone looks up to and someone that everyone genuinely considers, like I do, that she is a friend, someone you can lean on. To the people of the great State of New Jersey, gosh, I wish you all knew how incredible of a public servant she is and has been to New Jersey's interests. She is one of those people who, for millions of people in my State--her labor, her work, her counsel have made things better for New Jersey. To me, I don't call her Sarah; I call her, usually, Rojas. I am in public. I am in the light. I get jeers and applause.”
Senate18 June 2026Source ↗
“Tribute to Sarah Rojas Mr. President, I stand here with joy and sadness. I stand here with humble gratitude that I cannot express. Today, I want to recognize one of the more extraordinary people I have worked with in my life and one of the more extraordinary members of my staff, whose today is her last day. That person is my dear, dear friend Sarah Rojas. It is very difficult to put into words the role that Sarah has played in my life and on my team. For 13 years--for my entire time as a U.S. Senator--she has done almost every job in a Senate office. She is our utility player.”
Senate18 June 2026Source ↗
“We overcame them then, and we can overcome them now. The people united for the cause of freedom is the great story of America, and it is time that our generation--benefiting from the fruits of liberty, from the toiling hands of those in the past--it is time for our generation to earn the right of democracy by sweating for it and struggling for it now. This Juneteenth, let us cry ``freedom'' again but not with our mouths. Let's do it with our sleeves rolled up and ready to organize and mobilize in the days to come--because this next election is not right or left; it is right or wrong--so that we can elect people to this body and the other that will restore voting rights, that will restore voting freedom, that will restore the ideals of fairness. That is the end, that is the aim, and that is how we overcome again.”
Senate18 June 2026Source ↗
“I am not talking about a physical contest. I am talking about what makes democracies thrive, which is when we stand up and organize, we stand up and mobilize, we stand up and make sure that our voices are heard. On this Juneteenth, we need to recommit ourselves, like our ancestors did, to the highest ideals of our democracy, which are freedom and liberty. And how are these rights secured upon our Nation? It is by people in this country standing up and securing those rights through action. We are not a nation whose story is powerful people preying upon the powerless. We are a nation that has shown that the people hold the power and that the power of the people is greater than the people in power. Six people in black robes, they were wrong in Plessy v. Ferguson; they were wrong in Korematsu.”
Senate18 June 2026Source ↗
“What did generations who swore an oath to this flag that this would be a nation of liberty and justice for all, what do those people who died in the movement, what do those folks who struggled and sacrificed, what do those folks who literally watched, finally, fairness and equality coming to maps in the South, what are they to say now? I can't stand on this floor as one of the few and still only a handful of African Americans ever to serve in this body without knowing upon whose shoulders I stand, the debt that I owe, the price that they paid so that we should have a Federal Government that is truly of the people, for the people, and by the people.”
Senate18 June 2026Source ↗
“Here we are celebrating Juneteenth, but there is an irony--a painful, bittersweet truth--that is being told that, right now, we are seeing legislature after legislature in the very States that made up the former Confederacy moving with all deliberate speed to try to stop African Americans from having a fair say, a fair voice, equal rights in voting. And the consequence of that is already being seen. Just like George Henry White, who knew he would not last one more election cycle, I see colleagues now who know that their districts have been diced up with intentionality in order to stop their voters from having a representative in Congress. What did our ancestors struggle for?”
Senate18 June 2026Source ↗
“But here, as we get ready to celebrate Juneteenth and those ideals of freedom, I have to stand here on this Senate floor, recount this history, and say that we are at another crisis point in our democracy because the Supreme Court now has gutted the Voting Rights Act, eviscerated section 2. And what has happened as a result? Before the ink was dry, we saw Southern States--those same States that, a century before, used the legislative power at the State level to eviscerate Black voting fairness, they raced really quickly to draw congressional lines on their maps with the express purpose of diluting African-American voting power, literally eliminating districts where African Americans had fair representation, in order to stop them from having a voice in Congress.”
Senate18 June 2026Source ↗
“From those days in the 1870s and 1880s, with that reign of terror and the denial of vote, it wasn't until the 1960s that laws were secured, passed through the U.S. Senate and the U.S. House, that gave the right to vote a more fair and equal chance. It was called the Voting Rights Act of 1965, this extraordinary piece of legislation that secured the right to vote for African Americans. And, finally, African Americans start returning to our legislature. We saw Edward Brooke get elected to the U.S. Senate. We saw Carol Moseley Braun be elected to the U.S. Senate. The third person was Barack Obama, elected to the U.S. Senate. And I was No. 4--the fourth Black person in history to be elected to this body.”
Senate18 June 2026Source ↗
“What happened to Blacks in the House of Representatives? Well, they disappeared. I know the last speech--I have read it before--by George Henry White. The last Black person, in 1901, gave the final speech, and he predicted that one day African Americans would return to our Federal legislature, would return to the House of Representatives, would return to the States. It is called the ``Phoenix Speech'' because he predicted that one day Blacks would return to these bodies, one day elections would be free, one day we would reclaim our democracy of one person and one vote. It was 1901, and he was from North Carolina. And it wouldn't be until the 1990s that another Black person would come to be elected from North Carolina.”
Senate18 June 2026Source ↗
“African Americans rushed to the polls and voted at 70 and 80 percent and began to elect people in fair elections. We saw multicultural legislators. We saw Blacks and Whites in States sharing power. It was extraordinary, this brief window of time. But then the Reconstruction period ended, and a reign of terror fell throughout the South. We saw Black elected officials, Black judges, Black mayors being dragged out of their offices, beat, and some of them lynched. We saw laws being passed by State legislatures to bar Black people from voting, to put on poll taxes and other extraordinary hurdles to stop African-American participation and African-American voting. That very idea of being free was now undermined and undercut by a set of unfair laws. And what happened to Blacks in the Senate?”
Senate18 June 2026Source ↗
“There was jubilation. There was celebration. And the tradition of Juneteenth started. I am very familiar. It is hard for me to walk on this Senate floor, this sacred civic space--it is hard for me to walk here and not recognize the history. Right after Reconstruction, we saw the first Black person ever to walk on this floor. We saw a Black Senator and a Black Senator elected to this body--not popularly elected--but back then we put our legislators in the Senate by votes of State legislatures. We saw House Members come from Southern States, as well, being elected in free, fair elections in that Reconstruction period--because freedom in America is not just defined by not having chains. Freedom in America means being able to participate in this democracy. And in that brief period of the Reconstruction era, we saw free and open elections.”
Senate18 June 2026Source ↗
“Juneteenth Mr. President, this week, not many hours from now, we are going to celebrate Juneteenth. We all know the story of Juneteenth, that there were slaves in Texas that had not gotten the word that they were free. A civil war that cost so much blood and treasure to this country--no other war has seen so many Americans dead--and yet, at the end of that war, many, many people had not heard the Emancipation Proclamation, did not know they were free. It wasn't until that fateful day on Juneteenth that slaves--now free people--in Texas heard about their freedom.”
Senate18 June 2026Source ↗
“And at a time when we are seeing President Trump's policies causing food crisis to increase at an alarming rate, that bold farm bill must reverse the destructive Republican SNAP cuts that already left nearly 1 million of our children today going to bed hungry. I hope that we rise to this occasion in the Senate. I hope that we are a nation that knows our fundamental health and well-being rely on American farmers. They protect our heritage. They are stewards of our land. They are the hope for a better, healthier future. Let's stand together, join together, and be bold, be strong, and bring about a better deal--a new deal--for our farmers.”
Senate18 June 2026Source ↗
“Farmers need a bold farm bill that reinstates funding for healthy food purchases from our local farmers for schools and food banks. Farmers need a bold farm bill that scales up programs like SNAP Double Bucks that purchase fresh fruits and vegetables from small farmers and gets those healthy foods to families that are participating in the SNAP program. Not only would a bold farm bill like that be a lifeline to our farmers, but it would be an example of using food as medicine and provide healing--healing--to Americans suffering from diabetes and other diet-related diseases. But unfortunately, how did the House of Representatives--the Republican-led House respond in this moment?”
Senate18 June 2026Source ↗
“Farmers in America--our fellow Americans that farm--need a farm bill that provides substantial emergency financial assistance to all of our struggling farmers--and especially our specialty crop farmers who have so far been shortchanged in this administration. Farmers need a farm bill that puts more money into conservation programs and begins to reform those programs to better serve farmers and help them diversify their farms. And farmers need a farm bill that makes other policy changes to help our farmers and ranchers--policy changes like restoring mandatory country-of-origin labeling, reforming our Federal checkoff programs that are so broken, strengthening the Packers and Stockyards Act to protect our farmers and ranchers from abuses by big meatpacking companies creating a real farm safety net for specialty crop farmers in America.”
Senate18 June 2026Source ↗
“And so what our farmers need right now--and what all Americans need-- is for Democrats and Republicans to come together and pass a much bolder bipartisan farm bill that provides immediate assistance to our farmers--the assistance that they desperately need. We are losing farmers every day, and this body and the House and the President are not rising to meet this crisis. Farmers are wondering: Who is fighting for us? We need to show them that we are--in concrete policies that address their issues, that address this farm crisis, and for the millions of Americans suffering from preventable diseases that affects the nutrition crisis too.”
Senate18 June 2026Source ↗
“1 killer of Americans. Every single day in America, 2,700 people die from diet-related diseases. That is nearly a million Americans dead every year from what we eat. Half of adults are now prediabetic or diabetic--one in four of our teenagers are. Half the children alive in this country today are projected to be obese by the time they are 35. Cancer rates in young people are climbing. Dementia rates across our country are climbing. And a chorus of doctors and researchers are now tying this explosion of diet-related diseases directly to the ultraprocessed foods Americans are eating every single day.”
Senate18 June 2026Source ↗
“Farmers told me about how the current system was created to keep farmers growing commodity crops like corn and soy for animal feed rather than healthy foods to feed their communities they cared about because nearly all of our farm bill subsidies and safety net programs are designed to benefit big farmers growing a handful of commodity crops but not to support the farmers that grow the food that people eat like fruits and vegetables. And these farmers were right. While our Federal dietary guidelines tell us that 50 percent of our diet should consist of fruits and vegetables, less than 10 percent of our farm bill agricultural subsidies actually go to farmers that grow fruits and vegetables. And that has led us to the second crisis I mentioned: The nutrition crisis in the United States of America. Diet-related chronic disease is now the No.”
Senate18 June 2026Source ↗
“Farmers and ranchers told me about how decades ago they would have many buyers competing and bidding up the price for their livestock, but now, today, they often only had one buyer who was able to dictate a low purchase price undercutting them as they made more profit. I heard heart-wrenching stories about farmers whose land has been in their families for many generations but were now on the verge of losing their farm.”
Senate18 June 2026Source ↗
“Farmers are now being squeezed by monopolies on all sides. A handful of companies now control the inputs that farmers need like seeds and fertilizers and drive up those prices. And at the same time, farmers now have very few buyers for their products, and so they are not being paid a fair price for their crops and for their animals. Back in 2018, as I worked on my first farm bill here in the Senate, I went on a tour to meet with farmers--not just in New Jersey but also in Missouri, Illinois, and Kansas. Some of the farmers I met with were Democrats and some Republicans, but what I heard consistently from all of them was that our current farm system was not working for farmers.”
Senate18 June 2026Source ↗
“We see this President's reckless tariff policies have driven up costs for farmers; President Trump's reckless war in Iran, which closed the Strait of Hormuz, drove up costs for our farmers; USDA's decision to cancel critical programs that farmers were relying upon such as local food purchasing programs for schools and food banks--these are all things that have severely hurt our farmers. USDA's staffing cuts and field office closures have further injured our farmers, and I could go on with that list. But the heart of this problem that our farmers are facing, the heart of the problem is the massive amount of corporate concentration that has taken place in our food system over many decades as both Republican and Democratic administrations stopped enforcing our Federal anti-trust laws.”
Senate18 June 2026Source ↗
“And the farmers who have managed to hang on are telling me that the economics of farming simply do not work for them anymore, and they fear that we are on the brink of another 1980s-type of farm crisis. I am hearing more and more now from farmers about the reality that most of them have to seek off-farm employment just to be able to keep their families afloat. Now, this trend has been going on for years. It is a trend that we saw under Democratic Presidents and Republican Presidents. It demands a bipartisan response. I know the policies of this administration, though, are making the situation worse for farmers--not better. They are acting as an incendiary to this horrible fire.”
Senate18 June 2026Source ↗
“Mr. President, I want to talk about a real crisis in America that we are not talking enough about. We have a farm crisis going on in the United States of America. It is facing our entire country. It is facing our rural areas, and it is facing some of the most noble Americans in our country who are part of a great tradition and a great heritage that is vital to all Americans. We are in the midst of a farm crisis, and we are in the midst of a nutrition crisis. And despite the need for Congress to step up to this moment, to meet this crisis, and pass a bold farm bill, it is not happening right now. Since we passed our last farm bill in 2018, we have lost over 150,000 farms--most of them small farms. That is an average of 51 farms we have lost every single day for the past 8 years.”
Senate18 June 2026Source ↗
“Yes, America. Stop falling into tribal lanes and closing your eyes to things that should not be normalized. Why are we normalizing these things? They are wrong. They are patently, on the face of it, wrong. If you use Signal to discuss a military attack, the time of the attack, the weapons that are going to be used, and you do it on a commercial app and decide to include a reporter, there should be accountability. Am I crazy? (Applause, Senators rising.)”
Senate31 March 2025Source ↗
“I yield for a question while retaining the floor.”
Senate31 March 2025Source ↗
“Slow the legislative process as much as you can, please. I hope Trump will lose his majority. Thank you for your attention. I will be of service in any way possible to right these wrongs. I love when constituents don't only point out what is wrong but stand up and say: I will be of service. Let me know how I can help. Your voice is helping tonight. Speaking to these issues is helping tonight. I know my Senate colleague is here. She has a question. I will yield while retaining the floor.”
Senate31 March 2025Source ↗
“He married up, and he is going to teach me how to do that. I guess I am not allowed to insult a colleague on this. That is a violation of rule 19, I think, but that is a joke. But you did marry up. You know that.”
Senate31 March 2025Source ↗