Republicans Defend Rough Treatment Of U.S. Senator, Call For His Censure

While Democrats slammed the Trump administration for resorting to authoritarian tactics, GOP lawmakers blamed Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.) for the ugly episode.

WASHINGTON ― Republicans on Thursday defended the rough treatment of Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.) after he was manhandled, handcuffed and forcibly removed from Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem’s press conference in Los Angeles.

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.), speaking with reporters on Capitol Hill, called Padilla’s surprise appearance at Noem’s press event “wildly inappropriate” and accused him of charging at the Cabinet secretary.

A group of House Democrats who were walking by at that moment rejected the speaker’s characterization, however, hectoring Johnson by yelling, “You lie!”

Johnson went on, ignoring the jeers from Democrats: “A sitting member of Congress should not act like that. That behavior at a minimum rises to the level of a censure.”

Censuring a member of the Senate requires two-thirds of votes from the chamber, a higher threshold than in the House, which has been on a partisan censure spree in recent years. The Senate last censured one of its members in 1990.