Senate completes reading 628-page COVID-19 bill

The Senate continues to listen to a reading of President Joe Biden's $1.9T coronavirus stimulus relief bill being read in the chamber.

Who needs Amazon’s Audible when you can tune in to the Senate floor?

Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., made good on his promise Thursday when he forced Senate clerks to read all 628 pages from President Biden’s COVID-19 relief bill.

"I feel bad for the clerks that are going to have to read it, but it’s just important," Johnson told reporters, according to the Financial Times. "So often, we rush these massive bills that are hundreds if not thousands of pages long. You don’t, nobody has time to read them. At a minimum, somebody ought to read it."

Chad Pergram, Fox News’ congressional correspondent, reported that at about 9 p.m. ET, roughly 45% of the bill had been read. The reading wrapped up at 2:05 a.m. Friday morning. The Senate could not begin debate on the bill until the clerk finishes reading it out loud. Pergram reported that senators may ask periodically to dispense with the reading. But as long as Johnson is on the floor, he, or any other senator, can object.

Johnson said in an interview Wednesday that he plans on delaying the vote on the "Democratic boondoggle."

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., told "The Story" Wednesday that the package, which was passed by the House, is "a wildly out-of-proportion response to where the country is at the moment."

"This $1.9 trillion bill is the same size of the bill we passed last April, right in the middle of the pandemic," McConnell told host Martha MacCallum. "This is not the same country we had one year ago. Only 9% of this $1.9 trillion is related to health care, and less than 1% of this $1.9T bill is related to vaccines."

Fox News' Charles Creitz and Chad Pergram contributed to this report