Democratic Senator Violently Dragged Out of Kristi Noem Presser

California Senator Alex Padilla was forcibly removed from a press conference in Los Angeles featuring Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem on Thursday. The secretary was present to discuss recent Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids in the area.

The lawmaker was manhandled out of the room as he attempted to ask Noem a question about ICE.

“I am Senator Alex Padilla,” he can be heard saying as two men grabbed him.

When he was pushed out of a pair of double doors, Padilla was heard shouting, “Hands off!” Multiple men were involved in shoving the lawmaker, before Padilla was handcuffed on the ground by three FBI agents.

Padilla was reportedly ushered out of the room after he told Noem that “you insist on exaggerating,” according to NBC Los Angeles.

The incident didn’t appear to bother Noem, who continued speaking with reporters without missing a beat.

“We are not going away,” Noem said, moments before Padilla was removed, according to Independent reporter Justin Baragona. “We are staying here to liberate this city from the socialists and the burdensome leadership that this governor and that this mayor have placed on this country and what they have tried to insert into the city.”

Fox News national correspondent Bill Melugin reported that he and his team witnessed Padilla being “taken to the ground” and detained outside the room. Another angle of the incident showed an FBI agent warning the videographer that recording was not allowed in the hallway, citing FBI regulations.

“When I leave here I’ll have a conversation with him, but I think everyone would agree that wasn’t appropriate,” Noem said.

“When I leave here I’ll find him and visit and find out really what his concerns were. I think everybody in America would agree that that wasn’t appropriate, that if you wanted to have a civil discussion, especially as a leader, a public official, that you would reach out and try to have a conversation,” she added.

The lawmaker’s detention follows days of protests across Los Angeles, in which thousands of Angelinos have taken to the streets to visibly reject the Trump administration’s anti-immigration agenda.

Protesters have blocked off major freeways, trashed Waymos (self-driving cars), and organized outside City Hall and the Metropolitan Detention Center. In reaction, law enforcement officials shot rubber bullets and fired tear gas and flash bangs into crowds of civilians. The FBI added protesters suspected of throwing rocks at police cars to its Most Wanted list and issued an ominous threat Monday to intervene in the anti-Trump display without guidance from California or the White House.

Hours later, California sued the federal government to roll back Trump’s deployment of 4,100 National Guard members that state authorities said had not been authorized or requested to handle the protests. California Governor Gavin Newsom slammed Trump’s decision as “illegal” and a “brazen abuse of power” that had only further “inflamed a combustible situation.

“When Donald Trump sought blanket authority to commandeer the National Guard. he made that order apply to every state in this nation,” Newsom said. “This is about all of us. This is about you. California may be first, but it clearly will not end here. Other states are next. Democracy is next.”

In another decision that nobody responsible for overseeing peace in Los Angeles wanted, Trump additionally deployed 700 Marines to the City of Angels, an initiative that Defense officials revealed Tuesday would cost U.S. taxpayers $134 million.

The president had also claimed that the Los Angeles Police Department had requested the White House’s assistance—a claim that Police Department Chief Jim McDonnell vehemently refuted.

Trump also endorsed threats to arrest Newsom when the California governor began to hit back, telling reporters that he’d “do it.”

This story has been updated.

California Governor Gavin Newsom has claimed that his recent interactions with President Trump regarding his deployment of troops indicate that the president has deteriorated mentally and is unfit to serve. “He is not the same person that I dealt with just four years ago,” Newsom said.

Newsom, who has been sparring with Trump for days now over the latter’s unprecedented escalation of military force in Los Angeles, told Fox26 that the president couldn’t create a fully formed thought, and that he even saw him stumble.

“He also seemed to make up this idea that the National Guard did a great job last night, when they weren’t here,” a reporter posited to Newsom.

“They weren’t even deployed, and he claimed victory. He’s lost it. He hasn’t lost a step, and I saw him trip on the steps today,” Newsom replied. “He is not the same person that I dealt with just four years ago. And he’s incapable of even a train of thought. He’s making things up, and he’s putting people’s lives at risk. And he’s got a band of people that are complicit in this.”

Newsom’s accusation, while weighty, is one of many lobbed at the president over the past decade, especially as moments of physical slipup and mental confusion have increased. And while the governor has every right to communicate what he sees, he notably did not hold former President Joe Biden—who was obviously unfit— to the same standard less than a year ago, saying he would “never turn his back.”

The White House is once again defying the will of the people.

Donald Trump moved to overturn California’s electric vehicle mandate Thursday, marking the second instance this week in which the president has stretched his authority to advance his political agenda in the state.

California mandated a phaseout of gas vehicles and diesel trucks by 2035, citing benefits to public health and the environment. Eleven other states and Washington, D.C., followed suit. The plan required at least 35 percent of 2026 model vehicles sold within state bounds to be emissions-free, with that percentage growing to 68 percent by 2030 and 100 percent by 2035.

The Golden State passed the laws under the authority of the 1967 Clean Air Act, on the basis that the state needed more power to handle its highly polluted air and car-dependent cities. But each state requires a waiver from the Environmental Protection Agency before the rules can actually take effect.

Trump’s signature on the congressional resolution revokes three of those waivers, issued during the Biden administration, effectively erasing the mandate.

“Under the previous administration, the federal government gave left-wing radicals in California dictatorial powers to control the future of the entire car industry,” Trump told reporters ahead of the signing.

“We officially rescue the U.S. auto industry from destruction by terminating California’s electric vehicle mandate,” Trump continued, claiming that the zero-emission phaseout had been a “disaster” for the country. “And they’re never coming back.”

California officials immediately hit back, filing a lawsuit against the Trump administration for intervening in state politics.

“Trump’s all-out assault on California continues—and this time he’s destroying our clean air and America’s global competitiveness in the process. We are suing to stop this latest illegal action by a President who is a wholly-owned subsidiary of big polluters,” California Governor Gavin Newsom said in a statement shortly after Trump signed the resolution.

Eight other states across the country joined the suit, including New York, New Jersey, Rhode Island, Vermont, Massachusetts, Delaware, Oregon, Colorado, as well as Washington, D.C.

“Before today, over the past six decades, the EPA and Congress have never blocked any of California’s dozens of car and truck rules,” reported CalMatters.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth refused Thursday to answer a simple question about the Trump administration’s plans for Greenland, implying that the U.S. military has drawn up plans to take the country by force.

While testifying before the House Armed Services Committee, Republican Representative Mike Turner gave Hegseth the opportunity to clarify the Trump administration’s position on taking military action to acquire Greenland—but the secretary refused to deny rumors of a potential invasion.

“While you’re here, I just want to help you out because people try to twist your words,” said Turner. “You are not confirming in your testimony today that at the Pentagon there are plans for invading or taking by force Greenland, correct? That is not your testimony today?”

“All my testimony is, is that the Pentagon has plans for any number of contingencies,” Hegseth replied simply.

“It is not your testimony today that there are plans at the Pentagon for taking by force or invading Greenland?” Turner asked, sounding incredulous. “Cause I sure as hell hope that it is not your testimony—”

“We look forward to working with Greenland to ensure that it is secured from any potential threat,” Hegseth responded, still giving no clear answer.

Turner yielded his time back to the chair.

Hegseth’s position should only come as a surprise to those who still wish to believe that Trump is kidding about his fantasies of annexing the massive, mineral-rich Arctic island, which the president has claimed the U.S. absolutely needs to wrest from Denmark’s control in order to establish “international peace.”

But to the hammer Hegseth and his so-called “warrior ethos,” every problem seems to be a nail, and every acquisition a potential invasion. The Trump administration also previously asked the U.S. military to draw up options for retaking the Panama Canal, and Trump has said he wouldn’t rule out the use of military force to seize Greenland.

Hegseth’s revelation also comes just hours after the Danish government approved the construction of U.S. military bases on Danish soil. The Trump administration is also planning to move Greenland under the protection of its U.S. Northern Command, rather than the U.S. European Command—a symbolic change to incorporate the Danish territory.

The White House also has plans to conduct an expensive public relations campaign to convince Greenlanders that they actually want to be Americans.

President Trump thinks Gavin Newsom should be thanking him for “saving his ass.”

“Los Angeles was safe and sound for the last two nights. Our great National Guard, with a little help from the Marines, put the L.A. Police in a position to effectively do their job. They all worked well together, but without the Military, Los Angeles would be a crime scene like we haven’t seen in years,” he wrote Thursday on Truth Social. “Governor Gaven NewScum had totally lost control of the situation. He should be saying THANK YOU for saving his ass, instead of trying to justify his mistakes and incompetence!!!”

Trump sent thousands of National Guardsmen and hundreds of Marines to L.A. without Newsom’s permission to quell anti-ICE protests, an unprecedented escalation that led to violent clashes between troops and civilians last Friday.

“Federal antagonization, through the presence of soldiers in the streets, has already caused real and irreparable damage to the City of Los Angeles, the people who live there, and the State of California,” Newsom said in a statement. “They must be stopped, immediately.”

The scene did not reach a point that necessitated the presence of the Guardsman and the Marines. Trump is not saving anyone here. He’s creating a spectacle of fear, siccing the military on his own citizens to frame Newsom as weak and indecisive and depict himself as strong and poised. And he spent $134 million in taxpayer dollars to do it.