Sen. Alex Padilla disputed the White House’s account of the events surrounding his forcible removal from a news conference held by Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem on Thursday in Los Angeles, pushing back against key details about what exactly preceded his handcuffing by federal law enforcement agents.
Both the White House and Noem said Padilla, D-Calif., failed to identify himself to security, yelled and lunged toward Noem.
"This man burst into the room, started lunging towards the podium, interrupting me and elevating his voice, and was stopped, did not identify himself, and was removed from the room,” Noem said in an interview on Fox News. “The way that he acted was completely inappropriate."
Padilla denied all of Noem's characterizations in his first interview after the incident — on MSNBC with NBC News' Jacob Soboroff.
"That's ridiculous. It's a lie but par for the course for this administration," Padilla began.
"They said I wasn’t wearing my pin. My polo says 'United States Senate,'" Padilla said. "There was no threat. There was no lunging. I raised my voice to ask a question, and it took what, maybe, half a second before multiple agents were on me."
The Department of Homeland Security and the White House did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Noem held a news conference in Los Angeles on Thursday related to ongoing immigration raids across the city that have triggered volatile protests.
Padilla, who was attending a nearby briefing, interrupted Noem’s remarks, which he characterized as increasingly inaccurate and partisan, before he was forcibly removed from the event, put down on the ground and handcuffed by FBI officers, resulting in widespread backlash from Democrats.
Padilla called the degree of force used against him by FBI agents “excessive” and an “overreaction” because of his view that he wasn’t “threatening in any way.” He highlighted that because Noem’s conference was taking place in a federal building, he underwent a security screening and was escorted by federal agents at all times.
Despite that, Padilla said he was shoved out of the room by several agents, forced onto the ground and handcuffed. He complied with all of the agents orders, the senator said, because of lessons learned from his upbringing in the majority-Latino San Fernando Valley.
“Where I grew up, you know what happens if you don’t obey law enforcement. So I began to go on my knees to the extent that they would let me,” Padilla said. “I kept repeatedly asking themselves, why am I being detained? No answer. Why am I being detained? No answer. Why am I being detained? No answer.”
Democrats have widely condemned the incident, with former vice president and Padilla's Senate predecessor Kamala Harris calling it a "stunning abuse of power" and Rep. Adriano Espaillat, the head of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, calling for the arrest of the agents involved.
“We want a fast and full investigation on the assault of Sen. Alex Padilla. That’s what we want. We want those people that assaulted him to be looked at and to be arrested,” Espaillat said, adding that the Hispanic Caucus is “fully behind” Padilla.
FBI leadership has defended the actions of the officers amid the backlash, noting that Padilla was in plain clothes and not wearing a security pin and accusing him of resisting law enforcement officers.
"Our FBI LA personnel responded in support of Secret Service completely appropriately. We stand by them and appreciate their swift action," a spokesperson for the bureau said.
Former Seattle police chief Carmen Best, who is now an NBC News contributor, said the situation was “unfortunate” but that she believed the officers “had an obligation to respond” and acted appropriately.
“Their job is to make sure that no one causes harm to the secretary,” Best said. “If the security detail hadn’t acted in a situation like this I think they would have been in hot water."
After federal agents removed his handcuffs, Padilla said he was invited to meet with Noem for “a few minutes,” an opportunity he said he accepted in order to question her over Trump’s decision to authorize the deployment of several thousand national guard troops and hundreds of marines to Los Angeles in response to protests over immigration raids. She did not appear conciliatory during the meeting, the senator said.
“You’d think she might have started the meeting with an apology for what happened? Of course not,” Padilla said.
In the hours after the incident, Padilla has sought to tie his interaction with law enforcement agents to the ongoing immigration raids in Los Angeles, speculating that if federal personnel can use excessive force against a senator, they may use similar force when pursuing nonviolent immigrants.
“If they’re willing to do this to a United States senator representing the state of California, just imagine how it’s going with their immigration enforcement on the streets when they show up at restaurants and are trying to detain a cook or outside a Home Depot trying to detain a day laborer,” Padilla said.
