Los Angeles (AP) – The Democratic US Senator Alex Padilla was held on Thursday with a violent press conference of Homeland Security, Secretary of Homeland Security, from Kristi Noem’s press conference in Los Angeles and tied up with handcuffs when he tried to talk about immigration attacks in California Have led land.
The video shows a Secret Service Agent about Noem’s security details that attacks the California senator on his jacket and pushed it out of the room when he tried to speak during the event of the DHS Secretary. Padilla interrupted the press conference after Noem delivered a particularly targeted line and said that the federal authorities were not gone, but planned to improve and enhance the operations in order to “free” the city from its “socialist” leadership.
“I am Senator Alex Padilla. I have questions to the secretary,” he called in a strict voice.
With officers outside the room, he can be heard roaring: “Hands away!” He is later seen on the knees and then pushed to the ground and tied up in a hallway with several officers on it with handcuffs.
The shocking scene of a US senator, which was aggressively removed from the press conference of a cabinet defense, led to an immediate outrage for his democratic colleagues. Pictures and videos of the rougere, which bounced through the halls of the congress, where stunned democrats demanded an immediate examination and described the episode as another in a number of increasing threats to democracy by the government of President Donald Trump.
The democratic chairman of the Senate, Chuck Schumer, said what he saw “my stomach”.
“We need immediate answers to what the hell was going on,” said New York Senate senator from the Senate. “It is loathous, it is disgusting, it is so un -American.”
In a statement, DHS said that Padilla “chose the disrespectful political theater” and that the secret service “thought he was an attacker”. The explanation incorrectly claimed that Padilla did not identify – he did it when he was pushed out of the room.
“Padilla was repeatedly asked to withdraw and did not meet the repeated commands of the officials,” said the explanation and added that “officials acted appropriately”.
The Fracas in Los Angeles came only a few days after Democratic US representatives Lamonica Mciver had been charged with federal accusations that she had attacked and disrupted the immigration officers in front of a detention center in New Jersey while trying to visit a congress inspection in the facility. Democrats have framed the indictment as intimidation efforts by the Trump government.
The days of increasing tension between Trump and Democratic California Governor Gavin Newsom also follows about the federal military intervention in California. In a speech at the beginning of this week, the governor warned that “democracy is attacked before our eyes”.
After that, Padilla said, he had been removed and asked for answers to the “increasingly extreme measures to implement the immigration” of the Trump government. He said he and his colleagues had received little or no answer to their questions in the past few weeks and took part in the briefing to receive further information.
“If this administration reacts to a senator in this way … I can only imagine what you do with land workers, chefs, until day workers in the entire community in Los Angeles and in California and all over the country,” he said.
Noem told Fox La after the dispute had held a “great” conversation with Padilla, but called his approach “something that I don’t think is appropriate at all”.
The White House accused the Grandsstand Padilla.
“Padilla didn’t want to answer; he wanted to pay attention,” said Abigail Jackson, spokeswoman for the White House. “It is significant that the Democrats are more distributed over Padilla than the violent unrest and attacks on law enforcement in LA.”
Padilla, the son of immigrants from Mexico, was a strenuous Trump critic and his agenda of mass shifts. In a social media post, he said about the recent federal immigration attacks in Los Angeles: “Trump is not aimed at criminals in his mass deportation agenda, he terrorizes communities, breaks families and puts American citizens in danger.”
Padilla became the state’s first US senator in 2021 when he was selected by Newsom to fill the seat of the Senate of Kamala Harris after being voted vice president. At that time, Padilla was the state’s Chief Elections Officer.
Harris wrote on Thursday in a social media contribution that Padilla “represents the millions of Californians, the answers to the actions of this government in Southern California”. It called his powerful distance “a shameful and breathtaking abuse of power”.
The democratic senators quickly gathered in the chamber and condemned the treatment of their colleague a popular and respected Senators and asked the Americans to understand what was happened.
Senator Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass, said Trump, that this country “is increasingly looking like a fascist state”.
“Will a Republican senator speak for our democracy?” Flehte Warren.
Sen. Tina Smith, D-Minn., Noem asked to step down, and said that there was no justification for the treatment of padilla and that the Trump government had to be held accountable.
The spokesman for the House, Mike Johnson, R-La., Having accused Padilla, Noem, and pointed out that the behavior “increases to the level of a censorship”.
“I believe that it was very inappropriate,” said Johnson, a Trump allied, reporter in front of the house chamber, when the Democrats who passed by called: “This is a lie!”
“A sitting congress member shouldn’t act like this,” said Johnson loudly about the questions of the reporters. “It is a member of the congress. It is located under the US Senator.”
The Republican leader of the Senate John Thune said that he had spoken to Padilla and tried not to reach anyone, but not yet connected to her.
“We want to get the full extent of what happened and do what we would do with a senator in such an incident and try to collect all relevant information,” said South Dakota.
Republican No. 2, Senator John Barrasso from Wyoming, said that he didn’t know what happened, but that Padilla in Washington should have been at work.
The mighty incident is made when the congress is exposed to increasing interventions in its authority. As a cooking of the US government, the Trump government is practicing its executive powers in an undisturbed way.
As part of their work in the congress, the legislators are responsible for monitoring the administration, its agencies and measures.
Several senators and representatives have practiced their supervisory positions by arresting the treatment of immigrants and others in the context of the Trump government’s mass shifting operations.
The democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries, the democratic leader of house, said from the levels of the US Capitol, which is “un-American” with Padilla, and those involved must be held accountable.
“This will only end until the accountability is obliged and the Trump administration changes its behavior,” he said.
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Mascaro reported from Washington. Mary Clare Jalonick and Seung Min Kim in Washington and Jaimie Ding contributed to this report.
