Cory Booker appears in The Bob Zadek Show as a recurring reference in discussions of criminal justice reform, cited by host Bob Zadek as a Democratic partner to Republican Senator Rand Paul. The excerpts do not present Booker as a guest or as the subject of any extended treatment; he enters the program only when Zadek invokes his name to illustrate bipartisan cooperation on criminal justice issues.
Criminal justice reform as a bipartisan project
In the September 24, 2017 episode featuring Austin Petersen, Zadek raised the prospect of cooperation on criminal justice reform after Petersen described the “overly punitive criminal justice system” and called for “a total end to the federal war on drugs.” Petersen argued that “drugs should be treated as a medical problem, not a criminal problem” and criticized mandatory minimum sentences “even for non-violent crimes.” Federalism and the Flat Tax: The Austin Petersen Plan (2017) In response, Zadek told Petersen that he would help Senator Paul and Senator Booker in that regard, and later, in closing the episode, said that Petersen “will help Senator Paul and Cory Booker and others where help is surely needed on rationalizing this insane criminal justice system we have.” Federalism and the Flat Tax: The Austin Petersen Plan (2017)
The October 29, 2017 episode with Robert Alt of the Buckeye Institute returned to the same pairing. Zadek described criminal justice reform as a subject that “transcends typical party positions,” pointing to “the attempt and the allegiance of Senator Rand Paul and Senator Cory Booker, a Republican libertarian and a Democrat,” who he said “had a lot of common ground in the area of criminal justice reform.” Robert Alt of the Buckeye Institute: Power to the States (2017) Zadek attributed the failure of federal reform to Washington’s inability to focus on more than one issue at a time, saying that attention was paid to terrorist activities and that “the criminal justice reform hopes at the national level simply disappeared, at least for the minute.” Robert Alt of the Buckeye Institute: Power to the States (2017) He contrasted this with state-level activity, naming marijuana reform, rejection of Medicaid by some states, criminal justice reform, and right-to-work laws as areas where states were doing “sound experimentation with wonderful results.” Robert Alt of the Buckeye Institute: Power to the States (2017)
The First Step Act
In the February 21, 2019 episode with John McGinnis, a professor of law at Northwestern University, Zadek again raised the Paul–Booker partnership, noting that it occurred “perhaps before Booker was running for president.” Here Comes the Storm (2019) Zadek described Booker as “quite on the left” and a candidate who had “thrown his hat in the ring to be president,” and said that Booker and Paul “joined forces with a very interesting first step in criminal justice reform.” Here Comes the Storm (2019) Zadek framed criminal justice reform as uniquely important because government “is the only organization in this country that can lawfully use force to accomplish an end, and the only organization that is allowed to deprive us of our liberty, to lock us up for a really long time and take away our property.” Here Comes the Storm (2019)
Zadek credited Donald Trump with signing the bill, saying Trump “wasn’t a moving force, but he did sign the bill, and it was signed under his watch,” and calling it “a small first step, but a first step nonetheless in criminal justice reform.” Here Comes the Storm (2019) McGinnis agreed that the bill “advances liberty” but offered a note of caution, observing that “some of the harsh criminal penalties were in response to substantial crime increases in the 1970s and 1980s that may have had their source in the decline of social norms.” Here Comes the Storm (2019) McGinnis said he was “not confident that Trump is” owed the same credit as for tax reform, and that the crime bill “is a very good bill.” Here Comes the Storm (2019)
Across episodes
The three episodes show a consistent framing rather than a developing argument. In September 2017, Zadek presented the Paul–Booker pairing as a prospective alliance that Petersen would join. In October 2017, he described the same pairing as an attempt that had stalled at the national level, with the action shifting to the states. In February 2019, he described the pairing as having produced the First Step Act, which he called a small but real step. The constant across all three is Zadek’s characterization of Booker as a left-leaning Democrat who nonetheless shared common ground with Rand Paul on criminal justice reform; the excerpts show no change in Booker’s treatment, only in Zadek’s assessment of whether federal reform was advancing or stalled.
What the sources do not cover
The excerpts do not state Booker’s state, his Senate tenure, his committee assignments, or any bill he sponsored. They do not describe his positions on any issue other than criminal justice reform, and they do not quote him directly. The First Step Act is named only as “the First Step” and “the First Step crime bill,” with no statutory detail, vote count, or provision described. Booker’s presidential campaign is mentioned only as a fact of timing, with no discussion of its outcome or platform.