Sen. Alex Padilla (D-CA) said his forcible removal in June from a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) press conference after officials said he “lunged” toward Secretary Kristi Noem should have been a “wake-up call.”
In an interview with the New York Times‘s Lulu Garcia-Navarro last week, the far-left senator said, “Never would I have imagined that that would have happened — that that would be a response to a question, especially to a senator trying to ask a question.”
A video clip that began after the scuffle incident had started shows U.S. Secret Service agents grabbing Padilla, who was walking towards the podium where Noem was speaking, and shoving him out of the Los Angeles press conference as he tried to push his way back in:
Once they got him out in the hallway, officers placed Padilla on the floor and handcuffed him.
The incident was widely denounced by Democrats, while DHS said, “Senator Padilla chose disrespectful political theatre and interrupted a live press conference without identifying himself or having his Senate security pin on as he lunged toward Secretary Noem.”
“Mr. Padilla was told repeatedly to back away and did not comply with officers’ repeated commands. @SecretService thought he was an attacker and officers acted appropriately,” officials wrote in a statement, adding that Noem met with Padilla afterwards.
Padilla told the New York Times that he received “no apology, but honestly, not surprised, given how this administration tends to carry itself.”
“I wish I could say [the meeting] was more substantive or more constructive. [Noem] finally did say: ‘Well, I understand you’re asking for more information. What’s your question?’” he said
Padilla continued:
We kept hearing story after story of people with no violent criminal history being rounded up. And so I wanted to get some statistics. I wanted to ask the secretary, you put three, four, five names up on a slide show during a press conference, but who are the dozens and dozens of others that have been detained, that have been arrested?
It was clear to me that if that’s how this administration would respond to a senator with a question, imagine not just how they could treat so many other people, but how they are treating so many other people when the cameras are not on. This should be a wake-up call.
When asked if he thought his removal from the meeting was “deliberate or a mistake,” the senator replied, “At minimum, it was a hell of an overreaction.”
Olivia Rondeau is a politics reporter for Breitbart News based in Washington, DC. Find her on X/Twitter and Instagram.
