LAS VEGAS (KTNV) — U.S. Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey has an infectious way of discussing the future, one that gets beyond the crisis-of-the-moment and focuses on possibilities.
It's the same outlook that propelled him into public office on the city council in Newark, where he was eventually elected mayor, and then to the U.S. Senate in a special election in 2013, and re-election in 2014 and 2020.
WATCH | Booker sat down with Senior Political Reporter Steve Sebelius to share his outlook on politics and the future of this country:
"How are you going to re-imagine America, an inclusive America, not an us versus them America," he said an interview Tuesday. "I want to make sure that five years from now, every American can say 'I'm excited about the future, because I know my family is going to have not just security, but opportunity and possibility. We've got to reframe that, and the leaders that do that are the leaders that are going to unlock the exciting new America."
Is Booker one of those leaders? He ran for president in 2020, but says now only that he's focused on his Senate re-election, a contest that he's expected to win handily. But 2028 looms over any conversation.
"I'm very, very grateful that I'm called around the country. I'm here helping local candidates," said Booker, who did events Tuesday with Assemblywoman Sandra Jauregui, who's running for lieutenant governor, and Assemblywoman Daniele Monroe-Moreno, who's running for mayor of North Las Vegas.
"I'm very grateful that I've had a chance to lead in the United States Senate in bigger and bigger ways. But it cannot be about ego. It cannot be about the individual," he adds. "Mark my words, we are in the precipice. We have some difficult days ahead of us, but I think we're going to emerge to have the best days of America ahead of us, and whatever role I play on the team, I want to be on the field, helping to make that happen."
He's certainly put in the time in training. Booker in March staged a record-breaking 25-hour filibuster, physically and symbolically eclipsing the record of South Carolina Sen. Strom Thurmond, who was protesting the Civil Rights Act in 1957.
Booker isn't only philosophical, however. He's got practical ideas. He helped pass the First Step Act, signed by President Donald Trump, that enshrined sentencing reform into law. Ditto a bill to create opportunity zones.
WATCH | Booker shares a story where a fellow airplane passenger was surprised he complimented Trump on the work done on these pieces of legislation:
When asked what a president could really do to, say, bring down the price of groceries, gasoline, child care, housing or insurance, Booker has a plan.
"Nobody in America, no household, pays taxes on their first $75,000," he said. "That would give you literally thousands of more dollars, because I know you're paying federal income tax at maybe 18%, 20%. Well, imagine that. What that would do for your family. Why in the richest country in the world are we having a tax system that taxes the teacher at a higher rate than they tax the Wall Street executive? That is insanity."
Booker recalls his days as mayor in Newark, when his duties boiled down to fighting crime and attracting jobs to the city. The job of president has some of the same simple goals.
"The Democratic Party, I believe, needs a moral moment, to say, 'wait a minute, the system is more and more rigged so that all of the wealth is being moved and concentrated in the top 5 to 10% of Americans who are getting wealthier and wealthier," he said.
Despite that rhetoric, however, Booker says he believes any presidential candidate needs to unify the country.
"They're all these forces trying to turn us against each other, make us hate each other. I just believe that when our country stands together, works together, shares this idea that we have common cause, that's when America is at our best," he says. "I think the partisanship and the tribalism is tearing this nation apart. I think we need to get back to the true understanding that the lines that divide us are not nearly as strong as the ties that bind us."
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