WASHINGTON ― Republicans on Thursday defended the tough remedy of Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.) after he was manhandled, handcuffed and forcibly faraway from Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem’s press convention in Los Angeles.
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.), talking with reporters on Capitol Hill, referred to as Padilla’s shock look at Noem’s press occasion “wildly inappropriate” and accused him of charging on the Cabinet secretary.
A bunch of House Democrats who have been strolling by at that second rejected the speaker’s characterization, nevertheless, 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 better threshold than within the House, which has been on a partisan censure spree in recent times. The Senate final censured one among its members in 1990.
Padilla was filmed figuring out himself by identify and saying he was a U.S. senator as he approached Noem on the press occasion and commenced to query her on the Trump administration’s federal immigration raids in Los Angeles and the deployment of federal troops there. Three males instantly pressured him out of the room, wrestled him to the bottom and handcuffed him.
Noem, nevertheless, instructed Fox News that her safety officers didn’t acknowledge Padilla. She stated she had an opportunity to satisfy with the senator privately concerning the immigration protests shortly afterward.
“Nobody knew who he was when he came into the room creating a scene,” Noem instructed the community. “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 stated he was by no means formally arrested or detained, however the Democrat, California’s first Latino senator, drew comparisons to his remedy and that of undocumented immigrants throughout 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 stated at a press convention afterward.
Democrats cried foul at their colleague’s remedy, accusing the Trump administration of using authoritarian ways 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.) stated from the Senate flooring.
“Every day, Donald Trump is making this nation look more and more like a fascist state,” she added.
But Republicans principally blamed the ugly episode on Padilla, accusing him of orchestrating a stunt for political functions.
The tactic of crashing a authorities official’s press occasion is sort of frequent. Rarely does it result in a lawmaker being manhandled and handcuffed on the bottom.
“Instead of disrupting a press conference, why not just wait, do your own press conference?” requested Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio).
Other Republicans criticized Padilla for skipping votes within the Senate, though lawmakers on either side of the aisle continuously miss votes for quite a lot of causes.
“When we’re voting in the United States Senate [on] important legislation for the country, he’s not here, is that right?” requested Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.).
Arthur Delaney contributed reporting.
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/alex-padilla-arrest-handcuffed-noem_n_684b5390e4b09e8c02bfd0a2