Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Kristi Noem was in Los Angeles last Thursday, where she gave a press briefing on the LA riots. The press was there to be informed; no questions were being taken. The situation in LA was already a powder keg given the anti-immigration-enforcement rioting, and as the DHS leader in charge of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the threat to Noem was especially elevated.

Noem was in the midst of her opening statement when a man entered the room, started yelling, and then lunged at the podium where she was standing. Security personnel immediately intervened, took the disruptor out of the room, and handcuffed him. Seems pretty straightforward, right? Security made the right move.

BREAKING: California Democratic Senator @AlexPadilla4CA just crashed DHS Secretary Noem’s press conference in LA and was forcibly removed. pic.twitter.com/Q2sUWiImAM

— Bill Melugin (@BillMelugin_) June 12, 2025

Here’s the twist. That loud and imperious man was, in fact, California Democrat Senator Alex Padilla, who wasn’t wearing a security pin. He entered the room shouting questions, interrupting Noem, and causing a scene. He did say that he was a senator before they removed him from the room, but that really doesn’t make a difference. Anyone can claim to be someone else to gain access to a person they intend to harm. This was tragically proven over the weekend when a man impersonated a police officer and shot and killed a Minnesota state lawmaker and her spouse, and seriously injured another lawmaker and his wife.

It would have been even more foolish if the security detail hadn’t acted in a protective manner. The Daily Wire’s Ben Shapiro explains: “[Padilla] basically just rushed in and started yelling at her, yelling at her questions, and security appears not to know who he is. They don’t know him from Adam. It’s not like he cleared his presence with security. … Let’s be clear: Democrats are all looking for attention right now. Everything is about attention-seeking. If you think of Democrats, at this point, as a series of 5-year-olds who are desperate for mommy’s attention, then their behavior starts to make a lot more sense.”

Padilla claims he was there conducting oversight and that his motivation wasn’t a dog and pony show in front of the press. As National Review’s Andrew McCarthy explains, this way of conducting “oversight” is not allowed:

Noem was speaking at the Wilshire Federal Building in West Los Angeles. That is executive branch turf — 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. Senator Padilla had no more right than you or I to enter that building and make a scene while a high executive official was conducting a press briefing.

Imagine for a moment that a committee on which Senator Padilla sits was conducting an actual oversight hearing on Capitol Hill and that in the middle of the hearing, Secretary Noem or one of her subordinate agents — on no authority other than the fact that anyone can enter the Capitol and watch public hearings — barged in and demanded that Padilla and his colleagues answer the Homeland Security Department’s questions about what they were doing and why. No one would say Noem was an executive law enforcement official conducting a legitimate investigation. We would say she was obstructing congressional proceedings and flouting separation of powers principles. Democrats and the media would demand that she be prosecuted.

However, once Padilla was cleared, he secured a private meeting with Noem after the press conference was over, and they exchanged contact information.

The handcuffing of Padilla immediately had the Democrats screeching. Senate Democrat Leader Chuck Schumer said, “I just saw something that sickened my stomach — the manhandling of a United States senator.”

The New York Times headlined, “Padilla’s scuffle stirs painful memories of a childhood spent proving his worth.” This is Grade A gaslighting from the Gray Lady.

What it all boils down to is that Padilla tried to manufacture a viral moment and used performative outrage to do it. Performative outrage is all that Democrats are about these days, which was the real basis for Saturday’s “No Kings” protests. The Left protests against Trump ostensibly acting like a king, when in truth it’s they who want to tell us what car we can drive, how much water we can use, where our kids go to school and what they are taught, and that illegal immigration is justified — because who else is going to pick our fruit and clean the toilets? Leftists would love a king, just so long as he holds their ideological positions.

House Speaker Mike Johnson was asked about his thoughts on Padilla’s behavior. “It’s beneath a U.S. senator; they are supposed to lead by example,” he replied. “That is not a good example. We have to turn the temperature down in this country, not escalate it. The Democratic Party is on the wrong side. They’re defending lawbreakers and now they’re acting like lawbreakers themselves.” While Johnson was talking to the press, Democrat lawmakers took the opportunity to jeer at him and assert that he was lying.

There is clearly one side in the wrong here. Democrats can continue to scream and rant and rave all they want, but that’s not going to solve anything. In fact, it’s likely going to sink their approval numbers even deeper in the mire.