{"id":10257,"date":"2025-06-13T20:01:59","date_gmt":"2025-06-13T20:01:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/senate-dems-demand-hearing-on-trumps-response-to-los-angeles-protests\/"},"modified":"2025-06-13T20:01:59","modified_gmt":"2025-06-13T20:01:59","slug":"senate-dems-demand-hearing-on-trumps-response-to-los-angeles-protests","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/senate-dems-demand-hearing-on-trumps-response-to-los-angeles-protests\/","title":{"rendered":"Senate Dems demand hearing on Trump’s response to Los Angeles protests"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Democrats on the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee want their chair, Sen. Rand Paul, to hold a hearing on the Trump administration’s handling of the Los Angeles demonstrations against federal immigration enforcement and deportation activities.<\/p>\n

In a new letter obtained by Blue Light News, the Democrats are calling on Paul, a Kentucky Republican, to request that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem testify before lawmakers regarding the administration’s response to the ongoing protests in the L.A. area. President Donald Trump greeted the crowds protesting his immigration policies by ordering the deployment of National Guard troops and Marines \u2014 with California Gov. Gavin Newsom calling the use of military force \u201cpurposefully inflammatory<\/a>” and the California state government quick to file a legal challenge<\/a>.<\/p>\n

It also comes a day after California Democratic Sen. Alex Padilla was shoved to the floor and handcuffed by Noem’s security detail when he sought to interrupt a press conference the DHS secretary had convened to discuss the ongoing demonstrations.<\/p>\n

\u201c[T]he President has harmed public safety by federalizing a state\u2019s National Guard against the wishes of the governor and sending them into a city whose law enforcement is already dealing with the protests,\u201d the Democratic Senators wrote to Paul. \u201cWe therefore call on you to immediately hold an oversight hearing with Administration officials \u2026 to provide answers regarding the administration\u2019s dangerous and intentionally provocative actions.\u201d<\/p>\n

A spokesperson for Paul did not immediately return a request for comment, but it’s highly unlikely Republicans will engage with the Democrats’ ask: GOP senators are largely sympathetic<\/a> to Trump’s immigration agenda and aren’t expected to be further moved by the incident involving Padilla, who many Republicans accused of performing political theater.<\/p>\n

Senate Homeland Committee ranking member Gary Peters (D-Mich.) has separately asked to speak with Noem by phone after the episode with Padilla, according to a Peters aide, but said Noem has not yet responded.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Democrats on the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee want their chair, Sen. Rand Paul, to hold a hearing on the Trump administration’s handling of the Los Angeles demonstrations against federal immigration enforcement and deportation activities. In a new letter obtained by Blue Light News, the Democrats are calling on Paul, a Kentucky Republican, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10257","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-congress"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10257","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10257"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10257\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10257"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10257"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10257"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}