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What happens to your body when you deliver a 25-hour speech without any breaks?
April 2, 2025, 2:42 p.m. ET
For 25 hours straight, Cory Booker stood on the Senate floor delivering the longest speech in the chamber’s history without stopping to eat, go to the bathroom or even sit down.
“It’s an amazing physical feat, absolutely,” said Dr. Santina Wheat, a family medicine doctor at Northwestern Medicine Delnor Hospital in Illinois.
It also goes against all the advice she gives her patients about staying hydrated, getting plenty of rest — and, yes, using the bathroom when they need it.
Mr. Booker, who started speaking Monday evening to condemn the Trump administration and continued to talk until Tuesday night, told reporters that before he started speaking, he had not drunk water since Sunday night, so that he would not have to stop and use the bathroom. He also said that he fasted for days leading up to the speech.
“Both the cognitive and physical aspects of his body are definitely taxed,” said Dr. Joseph Herrera, chair of the department of rehabilitation and human performance for the Mount Sinai Health System. “Just to keep going is mentally draining,” he added.
Dr. Wheat woke up to a chain of messages from doctor friends speculating about whether Mr. Booker was wearing an adult diaper. (Mr. Booker did not respond to a request for comment, but his communications director told an NPR reporter that the senator was not wearing a catheter or a diaper.)
