A quote from Noem during that encounter:
“We are not going away. We are staying here to liberate this city from the socialist and the burdensome leadership that this governor and mayor have placed on this country and what they’ve tried to insert in this city."
Here’s the thing about the video: it STARTS with the goons’ hands already on Padilla.
There must be plenty of footage of what happened before they laid hands on him. But it’s not available----presumably because it would show that what Noem and other Republicans are claiming IS A COMPLETE LIE.
Noem claims Padilla was “Lunging” at her.
Mike Johnson and other Republicans whose comments were shown on CNN in the past hour or so claimed that Padilla “charged at Kristi Noem” and that Padilla “burst into a press conference” (what does that look like, exactly, and why is it a crime)?
Noem went on FoxNews within minutes of the incident, saying that she’s a victim of attempted assault. Mike Johnson said Padilla should, at a minimum, be censured by the Senate.
ALL FOR SOMETHING WE’RE NOT ALLOWED TO SEE.
The GOP claims are wholly unsupported. And it’s an important case because what they’re lying about can likely be disproven with merely the release of a minute or less of video.
https://www.npr.org/2025/06/12/nx-s1-5431731/padilla-removed-dhs-press-conference
Watch Nicole on msnbc. They play the video showing where he identifies himself, starts to ask a question and is forced out.
But he’s brown, so what else did we expect to happen?
And then she lied on Fox later when she claimed he never identified himself. You can clearly hear him identify himself several times in the video. And the “lunging” was him basically trying to stay on his feet and keep from being dragged out of the room.
Also, as he stated in an interview later in the evening on msnbc, he did not burst into the room. He had been escorted in, was standing quietly at the back behind reporters, and only tried to ask his question when he got fed up with her lies and BS. And that’s when they jumped him.
Sen. Padilla should consider himself lucky there wasn’t a gravel pit nearby.
Noem, Johnson, and other Trumpites have been using “he lunged” as the reason for putting hands on him in the first place.
But as you note, any “lunging” happened AFTER they put hands on him. As far as I can tell from the video @Roderick_Femm posted in another thread (which I’ll paste here), hands were put on him in response to his speaking. They hear his voice, they grab him.
Obviously no reasonable person would consider that to be acceptable—therefore the lies about him “lunging” and “charging” BEFORE they grabbed him.
Incidentally, I can’t understand why no one is showing the following video. All the videos in all the stories about this incident, whether on TV or online, begin AFTER they’ve already grabbed Padilla. Why are all these “news” outlets covering up for the Republicans? Why are they helping them to lie about what happened?
The URL hidden there is https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZSkhaLhIvk
To protect their jobs from retribution by Trump and his henchthugs.
I agree that this is the general orientation of many in the “news” business.
But we’re talking about about 10 seconds of footage, taken by a rep of a mainstream outlet (CBS). For EVERYONE to consider it Forbidden just seems like an overly-subservient position to take.
It should be all over the internet (where, presumably, “reporters” don’t fear losing their jobs since they don’t actually have jobs.)
If it had been 10 seconds of Trump stomping on kittens then I could (possibly) understand everyone being terrified to show it.
But this is several degrees of separation from Trump. I don’t get the level of ‘obey in advance.’
We now live in a post-democracy autocratic regime. Some people realize this more than others.
CNN reporting this turd was taken to the hospital. No details.
Hope she got bitten by a dog.
The Elder Ottlet alerted me to this. My response:
Heart
transplantinstallation?
Bronzer poisoning? Lip implant exploded? Mascara overdose?
Throat chewed out by a weiner dog?
Apparently some kind of allergic reaction, according to DHS
Well we can trust those guys!
to a weiner dog.
Or maybe she accidentally came into contact with a fact.
She is allergic to Truth, Justice and the American way…
.
.
Normal for someone that follows Untruth, Injustice and the Nazi cosplayer way…
I figured she got accidentally strangled by a tangle of hair extensions.
Wiener.