Senator Alex Padilla calls out JD Vance for wrongly calling him ‘José’: ‘The Vice President knows my name’ | EUROtoday

Senator Alex Padilla referred to as out Vice President JD Vance for — he claims — deliberately getting his first title mistaken when he was giving feedback about Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids in Los Angeles.

During a go to to LA on Friday to examine President Donald Trump’s home troop deployment, Vance referred to as Padilla “José.”

“Well, I was hoping José Padilla would be here to ask a question, but unfortunately, I guess he decided not to show up because there wasn’t the theater, and that’s all it is,” Vance mentioned.

He was referring to Padilla being dragged out of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem’s June 12 press convention, pulled to the bottom and handcuffed.

The senator mentioned in a touch upon X that the vp is aware of his title, and referred to as the comment a “petty slight.”

“The Vice President knows my name. But that’s not the point,” Padilla wrote. “He should be focused on removing the thousands of unnecessary troops from the streets of Los Angeles, not petty slights.”

He additionally shared a clip of a MSNBC information program he appeared on during which he mentioned Vance needs to be spending his time studying extra concerning the results of the ICE raids and talking with households who’re being “terrorized” by the federal brokers.

In the clip, Padilla challenges Vance to speak to the Marines and National Guard members who he says don’t need to be stationed in LA, to the town officers and the LA sheriff whose jobs, he says, have been made harder by the presence of the army within the metropolis, or to fireplace victims who’ve nonetheless not obtained federal help.

“We’ve got a lot of important work to do, but this is how the vice president chooses to act,” he mentioned. “Sadly, it’s just an indicator of how petty and unserious this administration is … you’d think he’d take the situation in Los Angeles more seriously.”

Padilla and Vance served collectively within the 100-member U.S. Senate between January 2021 and January 2025. As vice-president, Vance is now president of the Senate.

Padilla wasn’t the one one unimpressed by Vance’s feedback in LA. The metropolis’s mayor, Karen Bass, referred to as his commentary “an attempt to provoke division and conflict” and that he spent his time “spewing lies and utter nonsense.”

“We were able to handle the violence and the vandalism that occurred,” Bass mentioned. “Our streets have been peaceful, and even when there was vandalism at its height, you are talking about a couple hundred people who were not necessarily associated with any of the peaceful protests.”

She additionally accused Vance of disrespecting the senator by calling him the mistaken title.

“How dare you disrespect our senator?” she mentioned throughout a press convention. “The last time I checked, the vice president of the United States is the president of the U.S. Senate. You serve with him today, and how dare you disrespect him and call him José? But I guess he just looked like anybody to you. Well, he’s not just anybody to us. He is our senator.”

Governor Gavin Newsom additionally waded into the struggle, implying that Vance was being deliberately dismissive and disrespectful to the senator.

“JD Vance served with Alex Padilla in the United States Senate,” the governor wrote on X. “Calling him ‘José Padilla’ is not an accident.”