Sen. Alex Padilla (D-CA) expressed shock after Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said she wasn’t aware of who the California senator was following his detainment at a press conference.
“What does it say about the secretary to not know who the senator from California is, the ranking member of the judiciary subcommittee on immigration?” Padilla said during a CNN interview on Sunday.
Padilla claimed Sunday that he was escorted into the room where the press briefing was being held by a member of the National Guard and an FBI agent.
“They opened the door for me, and they stood next to me while I was listening for the entire time,” he told CNN’s Dana Bash. “And then, of course, once I was forcibly removed and handcuffed.”
Video showed the California Democrat approaching Noem as she was speaking, with security already wrestling with the senator as he began, “Madam Secretary, I want to know why you insist on exaggerating and embellishing—” before being pushed back toward the exit. Padilla can be seen resisting these efforts.
As security wrestled with the senator, who was still attempting to move in Noem’s direction, Padilla told them to take their hands off of him, identifying himself and saying he was there to ask questions before being pushed through the doors and into the hallway outside, where footage showed him being brought to the ground and cuffed.
Noem has defended Padilla’s removal amid increasing scrutiny on the matter, arguing that the Secret Service thought Padilla was an attacker. Noem claimed the California Democrat was seeking a viral moment, that “nobody knew who he was,” and that his “lunges” toward her and refusal to comply with officers holding him back had an unsettling effect on those in the room. “Appropriate actions” were taken as soon as the Department of Homeland Security learned his identity, she explained on Fox News’s The Story with Martha MacCallum, adding that the two spoke after the news conference.
“I had a conversation with the senator after this, we sat down for 10-15 minutes and talked about the fact that nobody knew who he was, he didn’t say who he was until he was already had been lunging forward and people were trying to detain him for quite a period of time,” Noem added. “And if he had requested a meeting, I would have loved to have sat down and had a conversation with him, but coming into a press conference like this is political theater. It’s wrong.”
Democrats have widely censured Noem for what they allege was an unjust detainment, with Sen. Adam Schiff (D-CA) becoming the latest to rise to his colleague’s defense on Sunday.
“He had every right to do so. That’s part of his oversight responsibilities, and to be treated that way and to be responded to by saying, ‘Oh, we didn’t know who you are’ when it was literally written on his shirt or his jacket when he was proclaiming who he is, I don’t buy it,” Schiff said on NBC News’s Meet the Press.
Padilla said he was in the building where the press conference was held when he decided to attend because he had been asking DHS for “more information and more answers” on its “increasingly extreme immigration enforcement actions.”
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He was not arrested but was placed in handcuffs after his removal from the press conference.
“Senator Padilla is currently in Los Angeles exercising his duty to perform Congressional oversight of the federal government’s operations in Los Angeles and across California,” a statement from the senator’s office read. “He was in the federal building to receive a briefing with General Guillot and was listening to Secretary Noem’s press conference. He tried to ask the Secretary a question, and was forcibly removed by federal agents, forced to the ground and handcuffed.”