Cory Booker for president.

Look, we have to start somewhere. And if somewhere is with a guy who can talk passionately about America for 25 straight hours without a bathroom break or a chair, then that’s as good a place to start as any.

Theatrics aside, what Booker did on the floor of the U.S. Senate last week was remarkable.

By breaking the Senate record for the longest floor speech in history with a searing critique of the Trump administration, Booker showed the nation what passion and commitment are all about.

Booker’s speech took direct aim at President Trump, who, in just the first two months of his second term, has used executive orders to dismantle federal agencies, upend the federal workforce and trample every initiative promoting diversity, equity and inclusion.

“In just 71 days, the president of the United States has inflicted so much harm on Americans’ safety, financial stability, the core foundations of our democracy and even our aspirations as a people for, from our highest offices, a sense of common decency,” Booker said on the Senate floor.

“These are not normal times in America and they should not be treated as such. I can’t allow this body to continue without doing something. The threats to America’s democracy are grave and urgent.”

Booker, New Jersey’s senior senator, urged Congress to do its job and hold the Executive Branch — and Elon Musk — accountable.

“The most powerful man in the world and the richest man in the world have taken a battle axe to the Veterans’ Association, a battle axe to the Department of Education, a battle axe to the only agency solely focused on protecting consumers against big banks and other factors that might abuse them,” he said. “What will we do in this body? What will we do in the House of Representatives? Right now the answer is nothing.”

Booker’s speech was must-see TV. Rarely are viewers so locked into C-SPAN.

In truth, Booker didn’t say much more than what Trump’s other critics have been saying for months.

But the way Booker did it made people listen.

Was it a gimmick? Of course it was. But so was renting an apartment in a public housing complex 20 years ago when Booker was running for mayor of Newark.

He won.

Democrats need to be thinking about their next presidential candidate right now, and Booker’s name should be in the mix.

If Booker, who briefly ran for president in 2020, isn’t the one, he’s at least making a strong case to be the one.

Until now, the presumed front-runner in a race that’s still more than three years away has been California Gov. Gavin Newsome.

But what has Newsome done, in the months since Trump took office, to articulate the pain of Americans the way Booker has?

The record that Booker broke belonged to the late South Carolina Sen. Strom Thurmond, a devout segregationist, who spoke for 24 hours and 18 minutes in opposition to the Civil Rights Act of 1957.

The bill, which became law despite Thurmond’s protest, established voting rights protections for Black people across the country.

“To be candid, Strom Thurmond’s record always kind of just really irked me,” Booker said after his own daylong diatribe.

“That he would be the longest speech, that the longest speech on our great Senate floor was someone who was trying to stop people like me from being in the Senate. So to surpass that was something I didn’t know if we could do, but it was something that was really, once we got closer, became more and more important to me.”

Thurmond never made it to the White House, despite his own presidential bid. But with Trump, we got the next worst thing.

Again.

Don’t believe it? Just ask Booker. Just give him a little time to catch his breath.

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