Democratic Sen. Alex Padilla says he attended Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem’s news conference today to hold the Trump administration accountable for what he says is a lack of transparency surrounding its immigration crackdown.
“We have questions,” Padilla told CNN’s Erin Burnett this evening, speaking hours after he was forcibly removed from the news conference after interjecting while Noem was speaking. “This is an administration that has been anything but transparent and accountable with — to the members of the Senate, to the Congress in general.”
Padilla said his removal from the room, after which he was taken to the ground by law enforcement and handcuffed, should serve as a warning of what the administration could be doing to others throughout the country.
“If this can happen to me, a United States senator representing the state of California … then imagine what they can do,” Padilla said. “Imagine what they are doing to people in communities, not just throughout Los Angeles, but throughout the country.”
Response to Noem’s comments: The California Democrat said he was escorted into the news conference by a National Guard member and FBI agent, rejecting Noem’s characterization that he “burst into the room” and “lunged” at her.
“Lies, lies, lies,” Padilla said, after watching a clip of Noem making the comments on Fox News.
The senator said he was standing in the back of the room listening to Noem when “the rhetoric got to be too much,” specifically, he said, the secretary’s comment that the administration was in LA to “liberate” the city.
Padilla said he did not resist after law enforcement took him out of the room, told him to get on his knees and pushed him down, and that he asked repeatedly why he was being detained but did not receive an answer.
Padilla said he took a meeting with Noem after the incident in hopes of getting answers to some of his questions, but that she was “still not forthcoming” and did not apologize for the incident.