“I was almost immediately, forcefully removed from the room. I was forced to the ground, and I was handcuffed. I was not arrested. I was not detained,” Padilla said.
Department of Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said Padilla was not compliant with officers’ commands and that the United States Secret Service “thought he was an attacker”.
“Senator Padilla chose disrespectful political theatre and interrupted a live press conference without identifying himself or having his Senate security pin on as he lunged toward Secretary Noem,” McLaughlin said in a statement.
“Mr Padilla was told repeatedly to back away and did not comply with officers’ repeated commands.”
McLaughlin added that Noem had a 15-minute meeting with Padilla after the news conference.
On Fox News, Noem said that her meeting with Padilla focused on the fact that law enforcement officers present during her news conference did not know who he was.
“If he would have requested a meeting, I would have loved to have sat down and had a conversation with him,” she added.
“... We exchanged phone numbers. We’ll continue to talk and share information … I wish he would have acted that way in the beginning instead of creating a scene like this.”
The White House also responded on X, posting a video of the news conference captioned, “Democrats will stop at nothing to put criminal illegals over American citizens.”
California’s leaders were quick to defend Padilla.
California Governor Gavin Newsom (Democrat) said Padilla “is one of the most decent people I know” and called his forcible ouster “outrageous, dictatorial, and shameful”.
Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass (Democrat) called Padilla’s detainment “absolutely abhorrent and outrageous”.
“He is a sitting United States Senator,” Bass wrote on X. “This Administration’s violent attacks on our city must end.”
California Senator Adam Schiff (Democrat) called on Noem to resign and for an investigation of the officers who arrested Padilla.
“The way he was treated and abused today is just disgraceful,” Schiff told reporters.
“It shows the utter disregard that this Administration has for any bounds of law or civility, any appreciation of the separation of powers between the branches of government.”
Former Democratic House Speaker and California Representative Nancy Pelosi lashed out at the treatment of Padilla by saying the Administration cannot handle basic questions.
“Don’t ask any questions because you’ll probably get beaten up. That’s called thug-ocracy,” she told reporters.
In Washington, congressional Democrats broadly condemned Padilla’s treatment, and some moderate Republicans also initially expressed concerns.
Hispanic House Democrats demanded answers from House Speaker Mike Johnson (Republican) over the incident, and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (Democrat) called authorities’ “manhandling” of the senator “a sickening disgrace”.
Like Schiff, Nevada Senator Catherine Cortez Masto (Democrat) has also called on Noem to resign over the incident.
Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski (Republican) called the incident “shocking at every level”, and Senator Susan Collins (Republican), who cautioned that she had only seen a brief video clip, suggested that authorities had gone too far.
“It looks like he’s being manhandled and physically removed, and it’s hard to imagine a justification for that,” the Maine senator told reporters.
Democrats also took to the Senate floor to denounce Padilla’s treatment.
“I just saw something that sickened my stomach: the manhandling of a United States senator,” Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (Democrat) said minutes before the last Senate vote of the week. “We need immediate answers to what the hell went on.”
Other Democratic senators warned that Padilla’s arrest was another step in the Trump Administration’s erosion of democratic norms.
Some of them compared it to the arrest last month of New Jersey Representative LaMonica McIver (Democrat), who was charged on Wednesday with assault and interfering with federal officers during a visit to an immigration detention centre.
“This is the stuff of dictatorships,” Hawaii Senator Brian Schatz (Democrat) said. “It is actually happening.”
Mariana Alfaro, Theodoric Meyer, Paul Kane and Marianna Sotomayor contributed to this report.
