Cory Booker BRAWLS With Democratic Colleagues in Wild Senate Floor Showdown: ‘Complicit to Donald Trump!’

Senator Cory Booker (D-NJ) openly brawled with Senators Catherine Cortez Masto (D-NV) and Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) over law enforcement bills favored by the latter two on the Senate floor Tuesday afternoon.

After Cortez Masto touted the benefits of passing the bills in question, Booker objected to propose an amendment that “guarantees every officer in every state” has “the full support they deserve in their service to our communities.”

“Sadly, this is not what the Justice Department is doing,” argued Booker. “Rather than supporting law enforcement agencies and officers equally across the nation, they are weaponizing public safety grants to punish state and local jurisdictions that resist the Trump policy agenda, including my home state of New Jersey.”

“It is disgraceful. It is unfair. It is unjust. And it is dangerously reckless towards the officers whose wellbeing they are jeopardizing,” continued the senior senator from New Jersey before calling it “outrageous.”

Cortez Masto then objected to Booker’s call for amendments to be added to the bills to prevent the Trump administration from taking the action he described.

“I agree: Withholding funding from law enforcement anywhere in the country, across the country, is just not acceptable,” she began.

“But I also agree that two wrongs don’t make a right,” Cortez Masto observed before noting that Booker had already voted to bring the bills to the floor and had never brought up such an amendment until this very moment.

“We are hearing for the first time about this amendment,” she continued, before calling his effort to attach it to her legislation “ridiculous” and “an attempt to kill all of these bills.”

“Tacking on a poison pill language to these bills won’t guarantee any additional funding makes it to New Jersey, Nevada, or any other state. Instead what it will do, it will keep critical bills from passing in the first place,” argued Cortez Masto. “You gotta question what is going on here.”

That speech caused Booker to erupt.

“I’m confused by my colleague because she knows I don’t object to her two bills. She’s going to be coming here to offer her two bills in a second, so I don’t know what the confusion is there. I object to the bills that are putting resources out that states from California to New York are not eligible for because of the actions of this president,” said Booker. “The second thing, my colleague confuses me, is saying, I had my chance. Well, actually, I didn’t. The regularly scheduled Judiciary Committee hearing wrapped up, and then a hastily one was put back together. I had no notice of that, no ability to plan for it, and had a conflict. This, to me, is a problem with Democrats in America right now, is we’re willing to be complicit to Donald Trump to let this pass through when we have all the leverage right now there is, to say, if you’re as passionate about police as we are, then pass bills out of this body that will help the police officers in Washington, that will the police officers in Illinois, that will helps the police officers in New Jersey, that will police officers in [inaudible]. Don’t be complicit to the President of the United States! Who we both know doesn’t understand that language, ‘Oh please, oh please, don’t hurt blue states.'”

He continued:

We are standing at a moment where our president is eviscerating the Constitution of the United States of America, and we’re willing to go along with that today. No, no, not on my watch! I stand against this! It is a violation of our constitution for the President of the United States to ignore the will of Congress and decide which states are eligible to grants and which are not! Well, we know something in New York and New Jersey. I was a Newark elected official when 9/11 happened. I saw my first responders charging into those buildings. I know what police officers do every day.

My amendment was just called a poison pill. That’s ridiculous! What my amendment does, it says the police officers in New Jersey are just as important as the police officers in North or South Dakota. It says the police officers in New York are just important as the police officers in Texas. It says a police officers in California are just as important as a police officers in Alabama. Why would we go along with a president who is violating our Constitution time and time again. When in the history of this body? Democrats and Republicans used to stand up for their turf! These could easily pass. Put a simple amendment that says, “You know what? You can play games however you want, President Trump. But when it comes to resources for police officers, no games.” Today, I stand and fight for the Constitution. I stand and fight against this president. And heck yeah, I’m going to stand and fight for the police officers from the great state of New Jersey. I object!

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Klobuchar was unimpressed.

“One of the things I don’t understand here is that we have committees for a reason, and we have hearings for a reason. And you can’t 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 in a big speech on the floor,” she submitted with no small amount of venom in her voice. “So, I like to show up at the mark-ups. And I like to make my case, and I will note that Senator Booker objected to my police reauthorization bill, the cops funding, the Clinton cops funding, long before Donald Trump came into office. So this is not just about this. This is a long dispute over this type of funding. Funding that I think is really important right now.”

“These and the other police bills passed during police week, while those police officers are sitting there in the hearing room, when no one objected. They are bipartisan, commonsense legislation. They passed the Judiciary Committee unanimously. And I can’t help it if someone couldn’t change their schedule to be there,” concluded Klobuchar. “I think that these hearings should mean something. And that people should be saying the same thing they say on police week when those people are sitting out their in the uniform who’ve lost loved ones as they say on this Senate floor.

Watch the full exchange on the Senate floor here.