Democratic Sen. Jeff Merkley of Oregon is staging a marathon speech on the Senate floor to protest President Donald Trump’s “tightening authoritarian grip on the country” amid the government shutdown.

Merkley started speaking at 6:21 p.m. Tuesday evening and was still going more than 17 hours later, pausing only for occasional questions from other Democratic senators.

The lengthy speech comes as Democrats have forced the government shutdown over their demands to extend government health care subsidies, and as Republicans have refused to negotiate over the expiring tax credits until Democrats vote to reopen the government. Democrats have voted 11 times to keep it closed — with a 12th vote scheduled on Wednesday — and the two sides have made little progress toward a resolution.

Merkley said during his speech that Republicans were the ones shutting down the government “to continue the strategy of slashing Americans’ health care” after passing cuts to Medicaid and other programs over the summer.

He used several hours of his speech to describe what he said were Trump’s authoritarian moves, including attacks on the press and policies that Democrats say are enriching billionaires at the expense of regular people. He said that Trump’s plan is to replace a government “by and for the people with a government by and for the powerful.”

Democratic Sen. Cory Booker broke the all-time record for longest continuous floor speech in April. Booker, who was also protesting Trump, broke the record set 68 years ago by then Sen. Strom Thurmond of South Carolina.