Sen. Cory Booker had a meltdown on the Senate floor yesterday, lashing out at his fellow Democrats for agreeing to pass some bills they had all collaborated on with Republicans. Booker is usually a decent speaker but in this case he actually did the thing. He started his speech saying there were things he was “tired of” and then offered a list of Trump’s wins against progressive law firms and universities and overpaid TV hosts. It was a full meltdown. Cory Booker is tired of all the winning:
Cory Booker goes tf OFF on democrats for being weak, and deserve to lose 🤣
Trump is breaking them all and I’m here for it 👏🏼
This was glorious 🥹pic.twitter.com/VIdxvJAXji
— Sara Rose 🇺🇸🌹 (@saras76) July 29, 2025
So what’s really going on here? Well, this wasn’t actually a battle between Booker and Trump, though that’s what Booker wanted it to become. This was really a battle between Booker and two fellow Senate Democrats who’d help shepherd through a series of bills related to police funding. Booker apparently never showed up during the markup sessions when those bills were being put together, but he did show up yesterday to have a tantrum about the bills and demand an amendment which Sens. Catherine Cortez Masto and Amy Klobuchar saw as a poison pill.
Booker’s opposition to the package met resistance from Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto, D-Nev., a law enforcement advocate in the Senate who was leading the package on the floor.
Booker tried to amend the funding package, arguing its public safety grants would be used to reward law enforcement in states favored by President Donald Trump while punishing others. He said his amendment offered an important provision that would shield the grants “from politicization.”
“I say we reject this and, in a bipartisan way, that we demand and end this kind of constitutionally unjust carving up of the resources that we approve,” Booker said of the legislative package.
Cortez Masto rejected Booker’s amendment, calling it a “poison pill” since the legislation had already passed through a committee of which Booker is a member…
Booker said the contention that his amendment was a “poison pill” was “ridiculous.” He then blocked the package of bills, which all of the other Democrats in his caucus had agreed to pass unanimously with Republicans.
Here’s Booker reacting to having his amendment called a poison pill by Sen. Cortez Masto. This is earlier than the clip above. He’s just starting to get himself worked up by calling Democrats “complicit” in Trump destroying the constitution.
🚨 BREAKING – DEMOCRATS DUEL! Cory Booker goes NUCLEAR on Sen. Catherine Cortez-Masto in the Senate, currently sparring over legislation related to police.
Says Cortez-Masto is “COMPLICIT” to Donald Trump! 🍿
“DON’T BE COMPLICIT to the President of the United States, who we… pic.twitter.com/zZyUPd4XbD
— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) July 29, 2025
And in response to that, Sen. Klobuchar really went on the attack, pointing out Booker’s problems with police funding pre-dated Trump’s arrival on the scene. She also called him out for not being available when the bills were being marked up. This is what led to Booker’s angry response at the top of this post. He’s angry at Sen. Klobuchar for telling him to show up for work instead of showboating after the fact.
Booker responds with the worst insult known to Democrats, he again suggests Sen. Klobuchar, and really all Senate Dems, are “complicit” with President Trump.
And at the end of all this bickering:
Booker withdrew his objection and the legislation ultimately passed, but he made his point.
I’m not sure what point Axios thinks he made here. It looks to me like he had a meltdown on the Senate floor which accomplished nothing except to list some of Trump’s wins and piss off some of his own colleagues. Nevertheless, he was ready to strike a resistance pose afterwards.
“There’s a lot of us in this caucus that want to f***ing fight,” Booker told reporters. “And what’s bothering me right now is we don’t see enough fight in this caucus.”
Is he thinking about running for President again? I’m thinking that may be what this was really all about.
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