The fallout from California Sen. Alex Padilla’s chaotic interruption of a DHS press conference continues, and Secretary Kristi Noem is now speaking out to correct the record and push back against the media spin and the Democrat faux-outrage mob.
What we saw wasn’t a misunderstanding or a case of mistaken identity. It was a premeditated spectacle designed to hijack the headlines, and according to Noem, it put everyone in that room at risk.
“We were conducting a press conference to update everyone on the enforcement actions that are ongoing to bring peace to the City of Los Angeles,” Noem explained in an interview with Fox News host Martha MacCallum. “And this man burst into the room, started lunging towards the podium, interrupting me, and elevating his voice… he did not identify himself and was removed from the room.”
In a post on X, FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino pointed out that Padilla was not wearing his security pin.
So not only was he dressed in plainclothes, but Padilla wasn’t wearing his security pin and was refusing to follow repeated commands from security. As we previously reported, DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin explained that the Secret Service believed that Padilla could be an attacker and acted accordingly. Padilla was handcuffed and held facedown outside the room after ignoring officers’ instructions.
Despite this, Padilla later claimed that he was simply trying to ask a question and that he wasn’t arrested or detained. He painted himself as a victim of some grand injustice, rather than an instigator trying to cause trouble. But Noem isn’t letting him rewrite what happened.
“As soon as he identified himself, appropriate actions were taken,” Noem said. But by that point, the damage had already been done. “Nobody knew who he was; he didn’t say who he was until he was — already had been lunging forward, and people were trying to detain him for quite a period of time.”
What’s most revealing is that Padilla could have gotten the information he claimed he was after — had he behaved like a serious public servant. Noem indicated that the door to a conversation was always open: “If he had requested a meeting, I would have loved to have sat down and had a conversation with him.”
Related: Democrat Senator Forcibly Removed After Disrupting Noem Press Conference
Instead, Padilla went for drama over dialogue. “Coming into a press conference like this is political theater, it’s wrong, and it does a disservice to this country and the people who live here,” Noem said bluntly.
Yet, despite his juvenile antics, Noem still sat down with Padilla afterward for a 15-minute meeting, something he never earned but she extended out of professionalism.
“We probably disagree on 90% of the topics,” she admitted, “but we agreed to exchange phone numbers, we’ll continue to talk and share information, and I think that’s the way it should be in this country.”
That’s what leadership looks like. Noem was calm under pressure, focused on informing the public, and still willing to engage with someone who tried to ambush her in front of a national audience.
“I wish he would have acted that way in the beginning instead of creating a scene like this,” she added.
This was a calculated stunt by Sen. Padilla. He wasn’t there to ask questions or get answers. He was there to stage a media spectacle, and right on cue, the Democrat spin machine kicked into gear with prepackaged outrage and performative pearl-clutching.
Let’s put this all in perspective: Joe Biden’s Justice Department spent years trying to put Donald Trump in prison. And we’re supposed to be outraged because Sen. Padilla got removed from a press conference he crashed and disrupted? Cry me a river.
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