“Manhandling” Of California Sen. Alex Padilla By Federal Agents In L.A. Puts Trump Team In Spin Mode – Update

UPDATED: Outrage and spin are proving the partisan fallout of Sen. Alex Padilla (D-CA) being hauled out of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem’s press conference Thursday in Los Angeles and handcuffed by federal agents.

After the incident, Padilla explained what occurred when he went to ask Noem a question about the thousands of troops deployed to L.A. and the ramped-up rounding up of undocumented immigrants (and more than a few legal immigrants) by ICE agents in recent weeks.

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“I began to ask a question,” Padilla said. “I was almost immediately forcibly removed from the room. I was forced to the ground, and I was handcuffed. I was not arrested. I was not detained.”

The clarification about whether California’s senior senator was actually arrested did nothing to lessen the blow that what happened to Padilla is what’s happening to American democracy and immigrant communities.

“If this is how this administration responds to a senator with a question, if this is how the Department of Homeland Security responds to a senator with a question, we can only imagine what they’re doing to farm workers, to cooks, to day laborers in the Los Angeles community and throughout California and throughout the country,” Padilla, the son of Mexican immigrants, said outside the federal building in West LA this afternoon. “We will hold this administration accountable.”

Fellow Golden State native Kamala Harris was quick to weigh in on what occurred to the man who replaced her in the Senate in 2021 when she became Vice President, calling it “a shameful and stunning abuse of power.”

In Washington, DC, as the attack on Padilla took over cable news and the Internet, Democratic House leader Hakeem Jefferies responded in stronger than usual words. “The Trump administration is a disgrace, Secretary Noem is a disgrace, the manhandling of Sen Alex Padilla was a disgrace … it’s un-American,” Jeffries said today with California’s other senator, Adam Schiff, standing beside him.

In typical Trump administration fashion, Noem took to the safe space of Fox News to offer justification for the incident with Padilla.

“Nobody knew who he was when he came into the room, creating a scene,” Noem told Fox’s Martha  MacCallum in live counterprogramming to Padilla’s speaking to the media.

“He was removed from the room, and yes, they started to put handcuffs on him when he finally identified himself, and then that was stopped,” she said of the potential constitutional crisis flashpoint moment. “They said he wants to talk to us and, sure, I’d love to sit down and visit. So, we went to a room and visited for 10 or 15 minutes and then exchanged phone numbers.”

With more Republicans picking up on false accusations of “storming cabinet secretaries,” Noem doubled down on the clichés on TV: “I’m so sick of the politics, Martha. This is literally people’s lives.”

As Noem spins her own version of events, there has been no confirmation from Padilla’s office of that meeting.

It should be noted that Padilla was identifying himself as a senator as the widely circulated video of the incident confirms. Noem has also met and interacted with Padilla on numerous occasions, especially since the former South Dakota governor was appointed to run DHS.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom took to social media to point out the gap between what Noem, the GOP, and the DHS officially say and what anyone can plainly see and hear:

In the video of the attack, Padilla, who was in the high-level security building for a meeting with military leaders about the troop presence in L.A., repeated that he had a question. Padilla had been in the room for several minutes before starting to ask the question, with no apparent move by federal agents to a so-called security threat.

Earlier today, in a hearing on Capitol Hill, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who is a defendant in Newsom’s bid for a temporary restraining order against troops in L.A., refused to commit to the administration complying with court orders. At the same time, Donald Trump himself today walked back parts of his anti-migrant policy after getting complaints from corporate America.

PREVIOUSLY, 12:22 PM: “We are a democracy, but we can lose that democracy,” a mournful Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA) said Thursday at the U.S. Capitol mere minutes after Sen. Alex Padilla (D-CA) was stunningly dragged out of a West Los Angeles press conference held by Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem.

Padilla was handcuffed and hauled off. “This is so wrong, this is so wrong,” Murray said.

The senator’s office says the Padilla, the son of Mexican immigrants, was not detained, but he has not emerged from the federal building yet. DHS has said the Secret Service shockingly reacted, or overreacted, because they thought Padilla was an “attacker” who seemed to “lunge at Noem”  – a statement that makes no sense with the level of security required to even get inside a federal building.

With tensions high in L.A. and thousands of National Guard and U.S. Marines deployed and protests over the harsh ICE raids, DHS says Noem and Padilla had a 15-minute meeting afterwards. That has not been independently confirmed; Padilla is expected to speak on the matter soon.

The widely condemned reaction by federal agents as Padilla was seeking to ask Noem questions comes as massive raids on undocumented immigrants, including at churches and school graduations, have been unleashed across California and the nation over the past week. A pivotal court hearing is set to start in the next hour on California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s request for an emergency temporary restraining order on Trump federalizing the Golden State National Guard on June 7 without consultation with the state.

Newsom expressed his own outrage at what happened to Padilla today, pointing the finger at Trump and his authoritarian rule.

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