(CNN) — Sen. Jeff Merkley has been speaking on the Senate floor for more than 12 hours after announcing he would protest what he called President Donald Trump ’s “grave threats to democracy.”

The Oregon Democrat began his remarks at 6:24 p.m. ET Tuesday and was still speaking as of Wednesday morning.

“I’ve come to the Senate floor tonight to ring the alarm bells. We’re in the most perilous moment, the biggest threat to our republic since the Civil War. President Trump is shredding our Constitution,” he said at the start of his remarks.

The senator’s marathon speech stands as a symbolic show of Democratic resistance as his party remains in a standoff with Republicans over health care subsidies amid the government shutdown. The shutdown is expected to drag on with the impasse entering

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