The day after Sen. Alex Padilla (D-CA) was manhandled by homeland security secretary Kristi Noem’s security team before being forced to the ground and being handcuffed, MSNBC legal analyst Lisa Rubin called out the Donald Trump appointee for her actions and comments as the lawmaker was dragged out.
Speaking with host Ana Cabrera, Rubin expressed her own disgust at the men who grabbed the lawmaker before taking aim at [Bimbo #2] Noem for continuing on as if nothing happened.
After watching footage of the incident, Rubin said she focused on what Noem complained about as the altercation took place.
Pointing out that Padilla “was escorted into that room DHS and an FBI agent flanking him, so clearly, somebody in the Department of Homeland Security was well aware that Alex Padilla was not only in the building, but in the room.”
“The idea that Alex Padilla was an attacker and was not recognized by people affiliated with Kristi [Bimbo #2] Noem, or that Kristi [Bimbo #2] Noem herself didn’t recognize Alex Padilla and stop herself to say, ‘Well, wait a second, that’s California’s senior senator, Alex Padilla, but instead continues on her way as he’s being escorted from the room and then pushed to the ground and handcuffed – that is an incredibly disturbing moment.”
“I don’t know if you could hear this,” she told Cabrera, “But as Kristi [Bimbo #2] Noem is continuing at her press conference, she’s talking about the danger of DHS agents being doxxed. I imagine that she was talking about the reasons for their wearing masks on the streets of Los Angeles and other places.”
“The idea that her concern was, in that moment, more about DHS agents being doxed while a sitting U.S. senator is being forcibly removed for nothing disruptive is chilling to the bone,” she remarked. “I saw that yesterday. I thought that I was incapable of more hyperbole, and I just don’t know where to muster it from anymore.”
