Sen. Jeff Merkley delivers 3rd longest Senate floor speech in modern history to protest Trump

By Morgan Rimmer, Ted Barrett and Rashard Rose, CNN

(CNN) — Democratic Sen. Jeff Merkley now holds the record for third longest Senate floor speech in modern history, after delivering remarks for more than 22 hours.

Merkley began speaking on the Senate floor after announcing he would protest what he called President Donald Trump’s “grave threats to democracy.”

“I’ve come to the Senate floor tonight to ring the alarm bells. We’re in the most perilous moment, the biggest threat to our republic since the Civil War. President Trump is shredding our Constitution,” the Oregon Democrat, who turns 69 on Friday, said after kicking off his remarks at 6:24 p.m. ET Tuesday.

In total, the senator spoke for 22 hours and 36 minutes.

Shortly after his remarks came to an end, Merkley told CNN’s Manu Raju that he almost fainted at one point and noted that he had been dehydrating himself since Monday morning.

“It is about dehydration. My last sip of anything — well, I might have had a micro-sip – was breakfast on Monday morning on the plane. That was my last food too. And I wasn’t really sure that was going to work out, and I said, ‘I hope I’m not fasting for no reason.’ I love to eat,” said Merkley, later adding that he had a slice of pizza just off the floor.

He said “there was one moment” where he thought he might faint, and noted that he had injured his back while running a few weeks ago. “My back hurt the whole damn time,” said Merkley.

Asked about gallery staff and Capitol Police, who are working without pay during the shutdown, being forced to work through the night during his speech, Merkley said it was “outrageous” that there are no negotiations happening to end the shutdown, and noted, “having this speech tonight or not having this tonight isn’t going to speed up paychecks.”

However, he added that after he finished speaking, “I went around and thanked everybody who had been on the floor, including the pages, including the floor staff, including everybody, because I do realize it was such an imposition.” He said that he also thanked the Republicans in the chair for presiding over his speech.

Senate rules do not permit lawmakers to take bathroom breaks or sit down without yielding their time – though there was a short interruption Wednesday at noon for the daily prayer and pledge before the senator began speaking again.

Merkley’s marathon speech stands as a symbolic show of Democratic resistance as his party remains in a standoff with Republicans over health care subsidies amid the government shutdown. The shutdown is expected to drag on with the impasse entering a fourth week Wednesday.

Democrats have so far held their position, blocking the GOP stopgap bill to reopen the government 12 times until their demands are met.

The senator in his speech pointed to the Trump administration’s previous halting of research grants for universities in its battle over campus oversight as well as the recent indictments of several of the president’s political opponents as well as his push to deploy National Guard troops to Portland.

“President Trump wants us to believe that Portland, Oregon, in my home state, is full of chaos and riots. Because if he can say to the American people that there are riots, he can say there’s a rebellion. And if there’s a rebellion, he can use that to strengthen his authoritarian grip on our nation,” he said.

Early Wednesday, the senator condemned the tactics of federal law enforcement against protesters outside of an immigration detention facility in Portland, and in other cities that are seeing a surge of immigration enforcement.

His comments on the situation in Oregon come after an appeals court on Monday cleared the way for Trump to deploy troops there after a previous, Trump-appointed federal judge blocked his first efforts to do so.

“This is an extraordinarily dangerous moment,” Merkley added Wednesday morning. “An authoritarian president proceeding to attack free speech, attack free press, weaponize the Department of Justice, and use it against those who disagree with him, and then seeking the court’s permission to send the military into our cities to attack people who are peaceful(ly) protesting.”

Earlier this year, Democratic Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey held the Senate floor for 25 hours and 5 minutes, warning against the harms he said the administration was inflicting on the American public. The effort broke the record for the longest floor speech in modern history of the chamber.

This was also not Merkley’s first time holding the Senate floor – he previously spoke for more than 15 hours in 2017 against Neil Gorsuch’s nomination to the Supreme Court.

In recent years, the chamber has seen a number of marathon speeches mounted by senators of both parties, including Sens. Chris Murphy on gun control in 2016; Rand Paul over National Security Agency surveillance programs in 2015; and Ted Cruz against the Affordable Care Act 2013.

This story has been updated with additional developments.

CORRECTION: This headline and story have been updated to reflect the record held by Sen. Jeff Merkley. He delivered the third longest floor remarks in modern Senate history.

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CNN’s Michael Williams contributed to this report.