Republicans Defend Rough Treatment Of U.S. Senator, Call For His Censure

WASHINGTON ― Republicans on Thursday defended the rough treatment of Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.) after he was manhandled, handcuffed and forcibly removed from Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem’s press conference in Los Angeles.

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.), speaking with reporters on Capitol Hill, called Padilla’s surprise appearance at Noem’s press event “wildly inappropriate” and accused him of charging at the Cabinet secretary.

A group of House Democrats who were walking by at that moment rejected the speaker’s characterization, however, hectoring Johnson by yelling, “You lie!”

Johnson went on, ignoring the jeers from Democrats: “A sitting member of Congress should not act like that. That behavior at a minimum rises to the level of a censure.”

Censuring a member of the Senate requires two-thirds of votes from the chamber, a higher threshold than in the House, which has been on a partisan censure spree in recent years. The Senate last censured one of its members in 1990.

Padilla was filmed identifying himself by name and saying he was a U.S. senator as he approached Noem at the press event and began to question her on the Trump administration’s federal immigration raids in Los Angeles and the deployment of federal troops there. Three men immediately forced him out of the room, wrestled him to the ground and handcuffed him.

Noem, however, told Fox News that her security officials did not recognize Padilla. She said she had a chance to meet with the senator privately about the immigration protests shortly afterward.

“Nobody knew who he was when he came into the room creating a scene,” Noem told the network. “He was removed from the room, and yes, they started to put handcuffs on him when he finally identified himself, and that was stopped.”

Padilla said he was never officially arrested or detained, but the Democrat, California’s first Latino senator, drew comparisons to his treatment and that of undocumented immigrants across his state by the Trump administration.

“I will say this: 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, you can only imagine what they’re doing to farmworkers, to cooks, to day laborers out in the Los Angeles community and throughout California and throughout the country,” Padilla said at a press conference afterward.

Democrats cried foul at their colleague’s treatment, accusing the Trump administration of employing authoritarian tactics to crush dissent.

“DHS agents are throwing people to the gound and violently handcuffing them while they are not resisting, detaining them for exercising their First Amendment rights of free speech,” Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) said from the Senate floor.

“Every day, Donald Trump is making this nation look more and more like a fascist state,” she added.

But Republicans mostly blamed the ugly episode on Padilla, accusing him of orchestrating a stunt for political purposes.

The tactic of crashing a government official’s press event is quite common. Rarely does it lead to a lawmaker being manhandled and handcuffed on the ground.

“Instead of disrupting a press conference, why not just wait, do your own press conference?” asked Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio).

Other Republicans criticized Padilla for skipping votes in the Senate, even though lawmakers on both sides of the aisle frequently miss votes for a variety of reasons.

“When we’re voting in the United States Senate [on] important legislation for the country, he’s not here, is that right?” asked Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.).

Arthur Delaney contributed reporting.

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