WATCH: Democrat Senators Melt Down, Storm Out Of Hearing

U.S. Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) appeared to be looking forward to the weekend as he joined fellow Democrats in storming out of a hearing on Thursday, but not before sparring with Republican leaders over the direction it was taking.

Booker, a pugilistic possible 2028 contender, voiced his displeasure with a hearing on controversial Trump nominee Emil Bove, the U.S. Justice Department deputy who has been tapped for a judgeship.

Fireworks began when Judiciary Committee Chair Chuck Grassley (R-IA) denied Booker’s request to bring up past allegations about Bove made by Erez Reuveni, a former whistleblower with the DOJ.

“Why are you doing this?” Booker practically shouts into his microphone. “This is outrageous!”

Another female lawmaker can be heard agreeing with him. “Kangaroo court!” she screamed.

Booker continued: “This is wrong! You violate your own rules without going by… by the mandates of the parliamentarian.”

Grassley, 91, appeared flummoxed as he tried to regain control of the hearing and motioned for a vote, but Booker wouldn’t be silenced.

“This is unbelievable! There’s a way to do this: If you want to force this through, if you want to ram this through, there’s a way to do it in accordance to the rules as spelled out by the parliamentarian.”

Behind him, a large phalanx of Democratic senators and staffers could be seen heading for the exit.

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Booker had invoked Rule 4, which requires a Senate committee to provide additional time as part of a nominee’s consideration. Grassley declined to acknowledge his request, prompting Booker and his fellow party members to leave the room.

“What are you afraid of?” Booker shouted over Grassley’s objections shortly before the vote. “Debating this [nomination], putting things on the record — Dear God,” he said, “that’s what we are here for.”

“This lacks decency, this lacks decorum, it shows that you will not hear from your colleagues,” he tried again, goading Grassley. “You are a decent man.”

“What are they saying to you,” he asked, referring to the Trump administration, “that is making you do something to violate the decorum, the decency and the respect of this committee to at least hear each other out?”

Bove ultimately cleared the committee on a party-line vote, but not without several other animated exchanges by Democratic lawmakers.

Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) upbraided his colleagues for ignoring Reuveni’s whistleblower claim against Bove as well as those of dozens or hundreds of other government lawyers who urged senators to vote against his confirmation to the federal bench.

“There’s something rotten in Denmark,” he said, referencing Shakespeare, before walking out, Fox News reported.

Trump, earlier this year, nominated Bove to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit after he went to great lengths to attack “activist” judges who have imposed nationwide injunctions blocking key initiatives of his administration.

Despite Bove’s success on Thursday, his path to confirmation remains uncertain, as moderate Republican senators continue to express doubts about his nomination. Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME), who has broken frequently with Trump and is widely seen as the most vulnerable GOP incumbent for 2026, is almost certain to vote against him.

Following the vote, Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) ripped Grassley’s “roughshod” treatment of Democratic committee members as unprecedented.

“I haven’t seen anything like it in 15 years in the U.S. Senate,” he told reporters. “Just overriding, roughshod, the rules of the committee to silence members [on concerns involving] the nominees for lifetime appointments” on the federal bench, he said.