Shame on you, Senator Alex Padilla!
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem held a press conference in Los Angeles on Thursday to discuss Immigration and Customs Enforcement operations in LA and the federal response to protests and rioting aimed at thwarting ICE officers from doing their jobs. But a senator representing California made all the news.
Padilla not only crashed the event, but he did so in an alarmingly confrontational fashion.
Wearing a windbreaker and no visible identification, he charged toward the podium and started barking, ‘I am Senator Alex Padilla. I have questions for the secretary!’ as he was restrained.
He was dragged from the room while wrestling with Secret Service agents, forced to his knees in the hallway by uniformed federal agents and handcuffed, which – I believe – is how he foolishly wanted this stunt to end. Although nearly getting arrested is unlikely the job that taxpayers are paying him to do.
Members of ‘the world’s greatest deliberative body’ are expected to mediate and govern, not act like raging Code Pink lunatics ranting against ‘The Man.’
Padilla – 52 years old and one of only 50 people in the country to hold a Senate seat – is ‘The Man.’
He is the top-ranking Democrat on the committee that oversees Noem’s department and has the power to ask her questions under oath. Indeed, Noem even chose to sit down with Padilla in private for a 15-minute meeting after the incident.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem held a press conference in Los Angeles on Thursday to discuss Immigration and Customs Enforcement operations in LA and the federal response to protests and rioting aimed at thwarting ICE officers from doing their jobs.Â
Wearing a windbreaker and no visible identification, he charged toward the podium and started barking, ‘I am Senator Alex Padilla. I have questions for the secretary!’ as he was restrained.
This isn’t statesmanship, it’s cosplay, an insult to the 39 million people he represents. What’s more, he put hard-working law enforcement officers in an impossible position in pursuit of his social media moment.
Tasked with protecting a senior federal official amidst civic disorder, these officers fell back on their training and instincts.
This conference wasn’t being held in the Capitol building, where the cops are expected to know all 100 senators on sight.
Imagine Secret Service agents allowed a man claiming he was a US senator to approach the secretary and something violent happened.
The country would – rightfully – be calling for these officers to be fired.
As the FBI’s spokesman said on Twitter/X, ‘When someone wearing no identification becomes disruptive, walks toward a Cabinet Secretary mid presser, and then resists law enforcement stopping him — then it doesn’t really matter who you say you are.’
DHS said in a statement that the Secret Service ‘thought he was an attacker’ because he ‘was told repeatedly to back away and did not comply with officers’ repeated commands.’
And it can also not be ignored that there have been two assassination attempts on the life of the president during the 2024 presidential campaign. Meanwhile, rioters in LA are throwing chunks of jagged concrete at federal agents diving in marked cars and pelting police vehicles from highway overpasses.
When tempers are running hot in the streets, we expect senior public officials to try to calm the waters.
Padilla did the opposite.
The Left whines about declining public faith in American institutions – this pathetic performance only hastens the decay.
If a US senator stages such chaos, how are we to tell the radicals that they shouldn’t make Molotov cocktails and hurling themselves at barricades?
And sickeningly, Padilla’s theatrics are not an isolated incident.
New Jersey Congresswoman LaMonica McIver was just indicted on federal charges for blocking federal officers from arresting the Democratic mayor of Newark at an immigration detention facility last month.
Maxine Waters – 86 years old and a member of Congress for 34 years – tried to force her way into a federal detention center, requiring the National Guard to block her path.
This isn’t lawmaking, it’s borderline lawbreaking.
He was dragged from the room while wrestling with Secret Service agents, forced to his knees in the hallway by uniformed federal agents and handcuffed, which – I believe – is how he foolishly wanted this stunt to end.
Rioters in LA are throwing chunks of jagged concrete at federal agents diving in marked cars and pelting police vehicles from highway overpasses. When tempers are running hot in the streets, we expect senior public officials to try to calm the waters. Padilla did the opposite.
Clearly, Democrats are frustrated that the American people tossed them from power in the 2024 election. But lest we forget, Democrats are out of power because we live in a democracy.
Two and a half years ago, they controlled both houses of Congress and the presidency; five months ago, they still controlled the White House and the Senate.
Democrats had an opportunity to reform immigration laws. Instead, their policy was to shut down border enforcement, flood the country with millions of illegal entrants and use executive power to temporarily legalize millions more.
The voters hated that so much that they gave Republicans the majority in both houses and Donald Trump the strongest electoral mandate of his career.
First-time Republican voters in places like the Bronx flocked to Trump’s banner in part because of the skyrocketing cost of living, but also because they were sick and tired of the migrant crisis.
Padilla will predictably raise money from this stunt and he is already being treated like a hero by slobbering, sympathetic interviewers on the cable news circuit. But most of Americans care more about solving the immigration crisis and they haven’t forgotten which party made it all so much worse.
