Cory Booker: “I rise today to give a speech that I have never given before. It is really important that I do it on the Senate floor…”

“I rise today to give a speech that I have never given before. It is really important that I do it on the Senate floor, but it is like I have never done it before because I am actually giving a speech to two young children who may not watch this for years, but I want them to hear it from me. These are two young boys--Azmir and Zaaran--and I write them. I give a sort of open speech to them tonight, really out of joy and faith that is untroubled by my hurt and my sadness. You see, I think something about this country that so many people have come to know who have seen the worst of America but still love America. They know how these emotions sit side by side--that you could hold sadness and joy next to faith in this Nation, even though there is disappointment. And what I rise to talk to these two young boys about is their dad. Their dad is a man named Adeel Mangi. He is an extraordinary man. I have met many people from New Jersey, but this man was so extraordinary that the President of the United States of America chose him, because of his qualifications, to be a justice on the Third Circuit Court of Appeals. That was why he was chosen. But he also happened to be a glass ceiling breaker; he also happened to be somebody who was going to make American history as the first ever Muslim judge--a man of Muslim faith--to be on the circuit court.…”