Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem promised to "increase" military operations in Los Angeles and "liberate" the city from its "socialist" elected leaders. Watching from the back of the room, Sen. Alex Padilla He decided he had heard enough.
"The rhetoric just got to be too much," Padilla later told CNN.
The altercation that ensued has now been viewed all over the world and the previously unimaginable sight of a U.S. Senator handcuffed for trying to ask a question of a cabinet secretary sent shockwaves across the country.
- Read more: Did Padilla 'lunge' at Noem? Here is what videos show
- Related: Photos show how National Guard troops have been deployed in L.A. But their role is growing.
- Read also: Outraged Democrats handcuffed in their ability to do much about Padilla treatment
In the aftermath, Republicans and Democrats rushed to give their very different accounts of what happened, even though most of the encounter was captured on video and witnessed by a room full of journalists.
The Chronicle has created a detailed breakdown of what happened, according to interviews with people in the room and a detailed review of video footage of the incident.
Padilla, a Democrat, arrived at the federal building in Los Angeles where the news conference took place on Thursday morning for a 10:30 briefing about the ongoing deployment of National Guard troops to the city in response to protests of immigration raids in the area.
The deployment followed two days of protests in Los Angeles as well as nearby Compton and Paramount, where protesters had attempted to block some Border Patrol vehicles and police had fired tear gas, flash-bang explosives, and pepper balls at the crowd. Democratic officials, including Gov. Gavin Newsom and Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, decried the deployment, arguing that local law enforcement had the protests under control and that the National Guard was only inflaming the situation and sparking more demonstrations.
To get into the federal building, Padilla had to check in with security and show identification, said Edgar Rodriguez, a spokesperson for the senator who was with him at the time. Padilla was scheduled to be briefed on the deployment by General Gregory M. Guillot, the Commander of the United States Northern Command, Rodriguez said.
The briefing was running late, and Padilla learned that just down the hall Noem was holding a news conference. Padilla decided to walk down the hall to listen in.
Noem began the press conference by thanking law enforcement officers responding to the protests. She praised federal immigration officers for arresting immigrants who had been in the country “far too long” and the National Guard and Marine troops who had been deployed to the city.
Padilla walked down the hall to the press conference escorted by an FBI agent and a member of the National Guard, Padilla later told CNN.
He showed identification to the FBI personnel manning the door and was let inside, where Rodriguez said he stood at the back of the room listening to Noem.
Noem thanked the U.S. Attorney’s office for its work prosecuting people arrested at the protests. U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli, a former Republican Assemblyman who was appointed to the job earlier this year, was standing in a row of people behind her as she spoke.
After listening to Noem for about two or three minutes, Padilla began walking toward the front to try to ask a question.
He did not cross the press line," Rodriguez said. "He did walk up to the front to try to get a better view, but certainly did not lunge forward.
Noem continued speaking as Padilla walked up to the edge of where reporters were lined up for the news conference. Twice, she criticized Newsom and Bass directly, saying Angelenos were “suffering” because of their policies and that the Trump administration was working to combat them.
The Department of Homeland Security and the officers and the agencies and the departments and the military personnel involved in this operation will continue to intensify and expand our efforts in this city," she said. "We are not leaving. We are staying here to liberate the city from the socialist and oppressive leadership that this governor and this mayor have imposed on this country.
That’s when Padilla can be heard interrupting. A group of news cameras was already filming Noem when Padilla started speaking and then pivoted to focus on the senator when the commotion began. The earliest look at Padilla comes from CBS' video of the interaction It shows Padilla standing at the edge of a line of seated reporters roughly 12 feet from the lectern, wearing a blue shirt and a dark jacket.
"Not the first time but the second time the secretary takes it upon herself to say that the Trump administration wants to 'liberate' the people of Los Angeles from the governor and the mayor. It was just too much," Padilla told CNN.
The CBS video pans to Padilla just as he starts speaking.
"Madame Secretary, I want to know why you insist on exaggerating and embellishing..." Padilla says before a man puts his hand on his chest and starts pushing him toward the door. A second person quickly grabs the senator and continues pulling him out of the room as Padilla loudly identifies himself.
Sir, sir, hands off, hands off," Padilla says. "I am Senator Alex Padilla. I have questions for the secretary. Because the fact of the matter is the half dozen criminals that you’re rotating in and out of your … your …
Padilla is forced out of the room before he can complete his question.
Rodriguez said that the Secret Service officers who pushed Padilla out of the room were not the same individuals who checked his ID at the door.
When the commotion began, Rodriguez said he moved toward the senator. He pulled out his phone and started recording. His video shows several men pushing Padilla to the ground in a hallway outside the news conference room and handcuffing him. The video abruptly cuts off, Rodriguez said, because an agent grabbed his phone and stopped the recording.
They shoved me outside. I was trying to both get my question out and not lose my balance, one is telling me get on my knees, another is telling me to go in a different direction," Padilla told CNN. "'Get down on your knees' turns into 'flat on the floor'... I’m finally down on the floor, they handcuff me.
He said he asked multiple times why he was being detained but did not get a response.
After Padilla was handcuffed, FBI agents began leading him down the hall, Rodriguez said. That’s when Corey Lewandowski, one of Trump’s most controversial aides, ran down the hall, told the FBI agents to uncuff Padilla and offered a meeting with Noem, Rodriguez said.
As the video began spreading rapidly online, Republicans and Democrats began telling two different versions of what happened.
Senator Alex Padilla should be ashamed of his childish behavior today," White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt tweeted at 2:29 p.m. on Thursday. "He crashed the middle of an official press conference being held by a cabinet secretary, recklessly lunged toward the podium where @Sec_Noem was speaking, and then refused to leave the room and follow the directions of law enforcement officers.
Noem went on Fox News to say that Padilla "acted completely inappropriately" by shouting questions and continuing "to lunge toward the podium" after being told to stop.
None of the videos of the incident show Padilla lunging toward Noem.
Essayli told the Chronicle that Padilla "stood up and started advancing" toward Noem in the middle of the briefing.
We were all taken off guard. We didn’t know he was there, that he was even planning to be there," he said. "And he was yelling, and he got into a physical altercation with Secret Service. They had him removed.
Essayli said that the Secret Service agents who grabbed Padilla didn’t know who he was.
"Frankly, that behavior is not really proper decorum. If he wanted a meeting, he should have asked for one," he said.
Some Republicans criticized Padilla for not wearing his official Senate pin during the encounter. Rodriguez confirmed that Padilla was not wearing his pin, but said there’s no protocol for senators to wear them outside of the Capitol. He also noted that the senator was wearing a shirt with a Senate logo.
Practically every major Democrat denounced how Padilla was treated.
The strong-arm tactics used against my colleague and friend, Senator Alex Padilla, in response to his peaceful conduct should convince all of us that the Administration’s goal is about more than deporting dangerous immigrants," Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., posted on the social media website BlueSky at 4 p.m. "They are determined to suppress even peaceful dissent.
Rodriguez said that after Padilla was released, he met with Noem and raised concerns about the deployment of military service members in Los Angeles. “It was a civil, brief meeting, but the Secretary did not provide any meaningful answers,” according to a statement from Padilla’s office.
In his interview with CNN, Padilla accused Trump of inflaming tensions in Los Angeles to distract from bad press about his budget bill’s deep health care cuts, his public fight with benefactor Elon Musk, his administration’s losses in court, and the ongoing war in Ukraine. The incident at the DHS news conference reveals the extent to which the Trump administration is willing to trample on Americans’ rights, Padilla said.
If it can happen to me in that setting, imagine what they’re doing to people all around the country," Padilla said. "It’s about all of our rights. The reason this crisis, this spectacle has been created by the Trump administration this week is because of all of the bad headlines of recent weeks.
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