Originally posted June 13th, 2025:
Political Theater: “What the Hell Went On?”
Andrew McCarthy offers his analysis on what went down when Homeland Security Sec. Kristi Noem spoke in LA on Thursday. Sen. Alex Padilla (D-CA) was forcibly removed and handcuffed at a Homeland Security press conference after he crashed Noem’s event. This can’t end well, warns Mr. McCarthy in NRO.
No surprise here that Sen. Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D, NY) quickly retaliated:
“I just saw something that sickened my stomach: the manhandling of a United States Senator. We need immediate answers to what the hell went on.”
At Noem’s press conference, it was reasonable for the Secretary to have had Homeland Security, especially with the event taking place in ground zero for immigration chaos. Sen. Padilla, according to Homeland Security, did not comply with requests to back away.
A statement on the Homeland Security Department’s X account accused Padilla of “disrespectful political theatre,” charging that he did not comply with requests to back away. In the statement, it detailed that the senator and Noem spoke for 15 minutes after the incident.
The left is promoting the narrative that Trump is an authoritarian who is bent on destroying American democracy, criticizes Mr. McCarthy.
Obviously, nothing could please them more than executive branch agents getting rough with a Democratic senator — especially after a Democratic mayor was arrested in Newark a few weeks ago after a physical altercation with immigration agents, a Democratic congresswoman has now been indicted in connection with the same incident, and California’s Democratic governor has seemed to be pleading to be arrested this week as he positions himself for a 2028 White House run by assuming the mantle of Trump’s archnemesis.
Who Wrestled Padilla to the Floor?
Not Kristi Noem. Not her boss, Donald Trump. Federal law enforcement, acting as a security detail, wrestled and cuffed the senator. There is no reason for the security detail to have known he was a senator.
In the heat of the moment, when he announced himself to be a senator, it was irrelevant. Security agents never take such proclamations at face value — and would not do so here under the circumstances in which Padilla sure wasn’t acting like a senator (more on that in a moment).
The moment was fraught, and agents had to make a snap decision whether Padilla might be rushing the podium to do harm. Padilla “did not stand down when the agents directed him to do so.”
Naturally, they reacted by treating him as a threat. You can say they were too heavy-handed; imagine the reaction, though, if they’d given him more leeway, he turned out not to be a U.S. senator, and he hurt somebody. Instead of “heavy-handed,” we’d be asking how the hell the agents could have let an assailant get so close to the top official they were supposed to be protecting.
Given that Padilla was neither harmed nor charged with a crime once things got sorted out, and that he ended up getting a private meeting with Noem afterwards, I am not going to criticize the agents. They’re just trying to protect a government official, the antithesis of undermining democratic governance.
Padilla Not Conducting Oversight
Mr. McCarthy explains why Padillo’s claim that he was only doing oversight is absurd.
Members of Congress, including senators, do not carry the legislature around with them wherever they go. Oversight is done on Capitol Hill unless a committee or congressional leadership has commissioned a fact-finding field trip. And when Congress wants to do such a field trip in a federal office building, they have to coordinate with the executive agencies in charge of the facility.
(Padilla) was crashing a speech by an executive branch official. He knew members of the press would be present and were apt to be sympathetic to the Democrats’ sanctuary policies. He was trying to disrupt the event, embarrass Noem, and draw attention to himself.
Despite Padilla’s claims, he was not formally functioning as a member of Congress.
Hence, he was subject to the same restrictions that would be imposed on any other citizen. No one would have been permitted by the agents to disrupt Noem’s speech or rush the podium. Anyone else would have been forcibly escorted from the room, detained at least temporarily, and potentially charged with assault depending on how serious the physical actions were. Indeed, we can safely assume that, as a member of the privileged political class, Padilla was treated better than the average rabble-rouser would have been once his identity was confirmed.
Sec. Noam was speaking at the Wilshire Building, a field office for the FBI, the State Department, the Department of Veterans Affairs, the General Services Administration, and other federal agencies. It is not a congressional facility, McCarthy clarifies.
Daniel McCarthy clearly is not calling for Padilla’s prosecution. Yes, Padilla had a right to attend Noem’s briefing in a federal building, but no more right than anyone else.
(Padillo) had no legitimate authority. … Furthermore, unlike the media and the broad public, whom Noem was addressing, Padilla has power, as a member of Congress, to ask Noem questions under oath during actual oversight hearings. He is thus the last person who ought to interrupt her and provoke the security personnel at a press conference in a federal office building.
Trump Is a Dictator
The legal reality is that Padillo pulled a publicity stunt. The agents didn’t know who he was or what he was up to. When Padillo made a scene, the agents had reason to be concerned that it could get violent, so they removed and temporarily detained him.
(Padillo) wasn’t hurt, he wasn’t charged, and he apparently got a chance to ask Noem questions in a private setting, even though she was under no duty to give him that opportunity. This kerfuffle should be no harm, no foul . . . except, of course, that this was a performative exercise in which Padilla wanted to provoke a reaction so he, backed by a chorus of Democrats and their note-takers, could hammer their “Trump is a dictator” narrative.
Andrew McCarthy does accuse our political class of playing with fire.
Trump is agitating Democrats because he senses, with good reason, that doing so is politically beneficial: They can always be relied on to advocate on behalf of lawlessness, which diminishes them in the eyes of Americans who want the laws enforced and the streets peaceful — and who well remember how authoritarian Democrats were while recently in power. … Democrats are appealing to a progressive base that, while not representative of public attitudes, wields outsize influence in the Democratic Party. That base believes America should not have borders, champions mass illegal immigration, and practices divisive grievance politics. Rabidly opposing Trump, being a hero to that faction of the party, is the route to political stardom — Governor Newsom believes it will carry him to the party’s presidential nomination. Padilla no doubt figures he is the matinee idol du jour.
Every day, there are altercations. And on Saturday, the left is urging millions of anti-Trump demonstrators to pour into the streets of over 2,000 cities, towns, and neighborhoods across the country to agitate against Trump’s policies — in particular, enforcement of immigration laws that were democratically enacted and are broadly supported (the desire that they be enforced is a big part of why Trump was elected).
Andrew McCarthy also warns that this can’t end well.
The hard left, to whose tune Democrats dance, believes violence helps their political project. People who make scenes and use force in hopes of provoking a forcible response will nearly always have such hopes fulfilled.
Today’s Padilla episode is a small snapshot of a far greater peril.
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