Sen. Cory Booker, his voice still booming after more than a day spent on the Senate floor railing against the Trump administration, surpassed Strom Thurmond for the longest Senate speech on record Tuesday night, in an act of astonishing stamina that he framed as a call to action.

Booker, D-N.J., a one-time presidential candidate, began his speech at 7 p.m. Monday, vowing to speak as long as he was “physically able.” In a show of physical and oratorical endurance, he lasted past sunset Tuesday, assailing President Donald Trump’s cuts to government agencies and immigration crackdown.

He ended his speech at 8:05 p.m., 46 minutes after eclipsing Thurmond’s 24-hour, 18-minute filibuster of a civil rights bill in 1957. He finished by quoting former Rep. John Lewis, the civil rights hero. Booker said of Lewis: “He said for us to go out and cause some good trouble, necessary trouble, to redeem the soul of our nation. I want you to redeem the dream. Let’s be bold in America.”

Earlier, cheers broke out in the chamber when Booker passed Thurmond. For a moment, Booker addressed the man he had eclipsed.

“To hate him is wrong, and maybe my ego got too caught up that if I stood here, maybe, maybe, just maybe, I could break this record of the man who tried to stop the rights upon which I stand,” Booker said. “I’m not here though because of his speech. I’m here despite his speech. I’m here because as powerful as he was, the people were more powerful.”

Earlier, at 4:20 p.m., Booker passed Sen. Ted Cruz’s memorable 21-hour, 19-minute harangue of President Barack Obama’s Affordable Care Act in 2013. As the hours dragged on Tuesday and Booker kept speaking, tens of thousands followed along on livestreams, curious to see how long he might go.

Without bathroom breaks but with occasional pauses for encouraging questions from his fellow Democrats, Booker read from a binder of notes and waved a small copy of the U.S. Constitution. He gesticulated and roared. At times, he draped himself over his lectern.

His voice grew hoarse. But it remained strong.

‘Moral moment’

He said the United States had reached a “moral moment” that required a stand against the Trump administration, which he said had brought the United States to a moment of “crisis” barely two months after the president returned to office.

“My voice is inadequate,” Booker said more than 19 hours into the speech. “My efforts today are inadequate to stop what they’re trying to do. But we the people are powerful.”

More than 67 years earlier, Thurmond set a record with a 24-hour-and-18-minute effort to block the passage of a civil-rights bill. The Senate’s log of longest speeches does not reach back to the founding of the nation, but Thurmond’s had been the longest recorded.

He had prepared for the speech by fasting for days, he told reporters Tuesday night after his speech. Before he began Monday, he had not had food since Friday or water since Sunday night. The approach took its toll, said Booker, a vegan and former Stanford football player who has chronicled his efforts to stay fit and eat healthy.

“Instead of figuring out how to go to the bathroom,” he said, “I ended up, I think, really unfortunately dehydrating myself.” During the speech, he recalled, he started to “really cramp up.”

Not a filibuster

Unlike Thurmond’s speech, Booker’s was not a filibuster — a procedural tactic that has been used to block legislation on many issues — because it did not come during a debate over a specific bill or nominee. But it did delay a planned vote on a Democratic-led bill to undo Trump’s tariffs on Canada.

He assailed what he said were Trump’s plans to cut funding for Medicaid and other programs. The White House has denied that it plans to cut Medicaid benefits, but the president and his allies have attacked Medicaid, Medicare and Social Security over what they claim is waste, fraud and abuse.

He called on a broad coalition of Americans to stand up to the Trump administration.

‘Spartacus’ moment

The White House dismissed Booker’s speech. A spokesperson for the president, Harrison Fields, said Booker was seeking an “I am Spartacus” moment, referring to a comment by the senator during the Supreme Court confirmation hearings for Brett Kavanaugh that was mocked at the time as a bid to capture a viral moment.

“When will he realize he’s not Spartacus — he’s a spoof?” Fields said in a statement.

But in the U.S. Capitol, Booker was cheered on by his colleagues and staff. Sen. Chuck Schumer, the minority leader, told Booker that he was delivering a “tour de force.”

Representatives who had crossed the capitol from the House filtered in, drawn by the spectacle. They arrived, lingered, departed, each bearing witness to the endurance test unfolding.

“This is not right or left, it is right or wrong,” Booker said Tuesday afternoon. “This is not a partisan moment. It is a moral moment. Where do you stand?”