{"id":10371,"date":"2025-06-17T19:31:39","date_gmt":"2025-06-17T19:31:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/padilla-says-trump-is-on-a-tour-of-retribution-in-first-post-handcuffing-floor-speech\/"},"modified":"2025-06-17T19:31:39","modified_gmt":"2025-06-17T19:31:39","slug":"padilla-says-trump-is-on-a-tour-of-retribution-in-first-post-handcuffing-floor-speech","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/padilla-says-trump-is-on-a-tour-of-retribution-in-first-post-handcuffing-floor-speech\/","title":{"rendered":"Padilla says Trump is on a \u2018tour of retribution\u2019 in first post-handcuffing floor speech"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.) castigated President Donald Trump as a \u201cvindictive president on a tour of retribution\u201d and warned of what the administration was doing to Americans around the country in \u201cplaces where there are no cameras\u201d in his first comments on the Senate floor since his handcuffing at Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem\u2019s press briefing last week.<\/p>\n

Padilla\u2019s handcuffing marked a sharp turn<\/a> in an already dramatic week for Los Angeles, where Trump last week deployed National Guard troops and Marines to contain protests and unrest that erupted in response to the administration\u2019s immigration detentions in the city. The altercation sparked outrage from Democrats, who slammed the administration\u2019s heavy-handed response to a sitting senator.<\/p>\n

In a statement released at the time, Padilla \u2014 as well as other Democrats who jumped on the messaging bandwagon<\/a> \u2014 warned that his treatment by federal law enforcement portended higher risks for ordinary Americans.<\/p>\n

He emphasized the same message to his Senate colleagues on Tuesday, cautioning that such a crackdown threatened to scare Americans into silence.<\/p>\n

\u201cHow many Americans in the year 2025 see a vindictive president on a tour of retribution, unrestrained by the majority of this separate and coequal branch of government and wonder if it’s worth it to stand up or to speak out? If a United States senator becomes too afraid to speak up, how can we expect any other American to do the same?” Padilla said on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

The California senator got emotional while describing how he struggled to maintain his balance as he was manhandled and forced out of the briefing room last week, before he was shoved to the ground and handcuffed, \u201cfirst on my knees and then flat on my chest,\u201d he recounted.<\/p>\n

Padilla said he was placed in cuffs after attempting to ask a question pushing back against Noem\u2019s claim that \u201cthe purpose of federal law enforcement and the purpose of the United States military was to \u2018liberate Los Angeles from our governor and our mayor,\u2019\u201d which the senator decried as an \u201cun-American\u201d sentiment.<\/p>\n

Noem and other administration officials have defended the actions, saying Padilla was just trying to draw attention to himself. \u201cIt wasn\u2019t becoming of a U.S. senator or a public official, and perhaps he wanted the scene,\u201d Noem told Fox News shortly after the dustup.<\/p>\n

Padilla said that he had been escorted into the briefing room by a National Guardsman and an FBI agent, of whom he had asked permission to attend Noem\u2019s press conference and who had walked him through security screening. Still, Padilla said, the law enforcement personnel \u201cstood by silently\u201d as he was forcibly removed from the room and handcuffed.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf what you saw happen can happen when the cameras are on, imagine not only what can happen but what is happening in so many places where there are no cameras,\u201d Padilla said, before warning that the incident was \u201cnot just about immigrant communities or even just the state of California \u2014 it’s about every single American who values their constitutional rights.”<\/p>\n

The senator encouraged Americans to exercise their right to peacefully protest in the face of the increasing crackdowns from the Trump administration, adding that \u201cno one is coming to save us but us.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIf this administration is this afraid of just one senator with a question, colleagues, imagine what the voices of tens of millions of Americans peacefully protesting can do,” he said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.) castigated President Donald Trump as a \u201cvindictive president on a tour of retribution\u201d and warned of what the administration was doing to Americans around the country in \u201cplaces where there are no cameras\u201d in his first comments on the Senate floor since his handcuffing at Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi […]<\/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-10371","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\/10371","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=10371"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10371\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10371"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10371"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10371"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}