Nicole Wallace (0:00)

Deadline White House is brought to you by Progressive, where drivers who save by switching save nearly $750 on average. Plus auto customers qualify for an average of 7 discounts. Quote now@progressive.com to see if you could save Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates national average 12 month savings of $744 by new customers surveyed who save with Progressive between June 2022 and May 2023. Potential savings will vary. Discounts not available in all states and situations. Hi there, everyone. It's four o'clock in New York. We begin with breaking news. Another Rubicon Crossing moment for the United States of America. A sitting senator, California Democratic Senator Alex Padilla, was treated in a manner you don't see every day in the United States of America or in any democracy for that matter. Today he was forcibly removed from a press conference that was being held by Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem. The sitting senator was then handcuffed and his body was placed on the ground. The video released by Senator Padilla's office shows what I just described. Sir. Sir, Hands up. Hands up. Senator Alex Padilla, I have questions for the secretary because the fact of the matter is a half a dozen violent criminals that you're rotating on your. On your. I also want ground. On the ground. On the ground. Hands behind your back. Hands behind your back. Lay feet up. Lay feet in my hands. Go ahead. Hiding behind my back. All right, cool hand. Lay flat. Lay flat. Other hand, sir. Other hand. There's no recording allowed on here. I did not know. There's no recording allowed on here. There's a disinformation campaign underway on Fox News where Kristi Noem did an interview in the 3 o' clock hour and said he didn't identify himself. I'm gonna ask the control room to rewind that and play it again while they're doing that. Let me just state this. He said, oh, here it is. Watch for yourself. Sir. Sir, hands up. Hands up. I'm Senator Alex Padilla. I have questions for the secretary because the fact of the matter is a half a dozen violent criminals that you're rotating on your. On your. ICE agents have been docked. On the ground. On the ground. Hands behind your back. Hands behind your back. My hands. Go ahead. Behind my back. All right, cool hand. Lay flat. Lay flat. Other hand, sir. Other hand. There's no recording loud out here. I do not know. There's no recording allowed out here. There's no recording allowed in here. I wonder why. Again, the United States Secretary of Homeland Security, Kristi Noem, went on fox news at 3:00pm and told this lie, quote, he didn't ID himself, Padilla did. So there's that. But he also tried to say before he was manhandled that he was there with questions for the secretary at her press conference. Here's how he described it after a few moments ago. Since the beginning of the year, but especially over the course of recent weeks, I, several of my colleagues have been asking the Department of Homeland Security for more information and more answers on their increasingly extreme immigration enforcement actions. And we've gotten little to know information in response to our inquiries. And so I came to the press conference to hear what she had to say to see if I could learn any new additional information. And at one point I had a question. And let me emphasize, just as we emphasized the right for people to peacefully protest and to stand up for their First Amendment rights, for our fundamental rights, I was there peacefully. At one point I had a question. And so I began to ask a question. I was almost immediately forcibly removed from the room. I was forced to the ground and I was handcuffed. I will say this. If this is how this administration responds to a senator with a question, if this is how the Department of Homeland Security responds to a senator or with a question, you can only imagine what they're doing to farm workers, to cooks, to day laborers out in the Los Angeles community and throughout California and throughout the country, we will hold this administration accountable. If this is how they treat a senator with a question, imagine what they're doing to others. That's the question for all of us right now. Today, California's Governor Gavin Newsom posted this quote, Senator Alex Padilla is one of the most decent people I know. This is outrageous, dictatorial and shameful. Trump and his shock troops are out of control. This must end now. Former Vice President Kamala Harris, who held the same Senate seat as Senator Padilla, tweeted this quote, United States Senator Alex Padilla was representing the millions of Californians who are demanding answers to this administration's actions in Southern California. This is a shameful and stunning abuse of power. It's where we start today with my colleague, NBC's Jacob Sobroff. He's in Los Angeles, where Senator Padilla was just speaking. Also joining me, MSNBC political analyst, host of the Bulwark podcast, Tim Miller's here. Also joining us, the publisher of the Bulwark and host of the focus group podcast, Sarah Longwell is here. And here at the table for the our former deputy national security adviser to President Obama, MSNBC contributor Ben Rhodes. Is here. Ben, I start with you because I don't want these words that I started with to get old because they mean the same thing, even though we've had to say it twice this week. It's a Rubicon Crossing moment to forcibly remove a sitting United States senator from a press conference, as he said, quote, with a question. It was also a Rubicon Crossing moment in this hour yesterday when the National Guard detained, carried out seeming law enforcement functions on the streets of Los Angeles. But this is where we are. Yeah, and that's difficult to watch. I mean, I think what I'd say, Nicole, is that the authoritarianism is the point. That's what's happening. We are at that moment, we are only five months into this administration, and they already have the United States military in the streets of a major city for no reason whatsoever, serving Donald Trump's personal policy and political interests over the objections of state and local officials, including the officials who are supposed to have the authority over that. They're already demonstrating that they have no accountability for what they're doing. They won't even answer questions from United States Senator. And when those questions are asked, he is treated in the manner that we just saw. They're trying to convey that nobody can challenge their authority, that nobody even has a right to know why these troops are in the streets, how long they're going to be there. What I worry about is maybe those troops don't come home, Nicole. Maybe it's just normalized. They want to make people get used to the fact that ICE can pick up anybody that they want, wherever they want, whoever they are, whether they've committed a crime or not, whether they're a US Person or not. You're not allowed to ask questions about it. If you ask questions about it, you're going to throw into the ground and handcuffed, even if you're a United States senator. We are here five months into this administration. Where is this going? And what I'm worried about is they're normalizing this behavior in the United States of America. I've been on the show with you to talk about other authoritarian leaders. I've been on the show to talk about, say, Viktor Orban, who we hold up as a kind of model of an illiberal leader. He's never done anything like this. This is so far beyond what we've seen in other authoritarian countries. So this is not a question of whether we're democratic backsliding. We're way beyond that. We've backslid. We're now more authoritarian in our government than most of the countries that we talk about when we talk about dictatorial regimes in this world. That's where we are now in month five. So where are we heading? I think we're headed to a place where what is going to happen this weekend where there's popular mobilization and there's troops in the streets and there's a president of the United States who's going to watch tanks and helicopters go by him. That's where we're going to be. This is. This is, you know, the Rubicon's been crossed. The lines have been drawn. And because of the complete abdication of responsibility from the Republican Party in this country, how does John Thune, the Senate Majority leader, see about one? How does he feel about one of his colleagues being thrown to the ground and handcuffed? We've heard nothing from them. So it's up to the people on the streets, and that's where we're going to be. We're just going to be in a place, a very difficult place, and it's hard for people to hear. But I'm glad that people are mobilizing because this is not something that we've ever seen before in the history of this country. And this is just where we're going to be until either some people get some backbone who actually have power to stand up to Trump, the courts, the Senate Republicans, or we're just going to be here until we can get to another election if there's not a military national emergency declared to prevent that election from happening. I think we have to start talking about these things. I want to do one more thing before I bring Jacob into this. It's not often that you get to see the propaganda forming in real time. And the video was available before Kristi Noem's 3pm interview on Fox News was announced or notified with a little box to promote it. And the video shows Senator Alex Padilla saying, quote, I'm Senator Alex Padilla. I'm Senator Alex Padilla. I don't know who interviewed Kristi Noem, but Kristi Noem tells this lie. Quote, he didn't identify himself. The lie isn't corrected. So now millions of people, that network has a huge audience, heard that lie. What is the role of propaganda in unchecked, uncorrected lies in the media in a. An autocratic lunge? I think if you want to look at an example, it's Russia, right? And in Russia, what you have, if you watch television, all you see is an alternative reality that is not reality. This is a Reality that the regime wants you to think is reality. That is what Fox News is. It is no different than the state media that we see in places like Russia there. I'm from Los Angeles. I just got here yesterday. There's no burning of L. A to the ground. They've created a complete fiction on television, running in a loop, the same four or five images of the same burning car, Right. They're going to kind of force down the throats of the people that watch and consume their media or their social media a complete false reality. And that makes it incumbent on us to do whatever we can in our personal communications with our neighbors as well as the platforms that we have to communicate a reality. I just want to say one other thing, Nicole. There's a racialized component to this. Alex Padilla is brown, right? And let's just name this, too. They're going to kind of otherize him in the same way that they're trying to otherize the kind of people that are being rolled up in a lot of these raids, including people who've committed no crimes, including people who may be here illegally. That's where they're starting, but it's not where they're going to end. The end goal is there not to be dissent in this country. And that's the to end where I started. That's the purpose of that kind of alternative state media reality, to ensure that there's no dissent. There's only our version of reality. Jacob Soborough, let me pull you in here. This lie that was told, quote, he didn't identify himself. Again, a lie dispelled by the video. What was Senator Padilla's understanding of why he was forcibly removed and brought to the ground to lay on his stomach with his face on the ground and handcuffed behind his back? What he told the people assembled here at the Federal Building in Westwood, California, Nicole, is that he went in there to ask questions of the Department of Homeland Security he wasn't getting answers to from that department and from that secretary about the ongoing raids, not only in the state that he represents, but for people that know Alex Padilla as the senior senator from California and a frequent guest on msnbc, there's some very important context here. Alex Padilla is the son of the northeast San Fernando Valley. He is the son of two Mexican immigrants who came to this country, got green cards, and later became US Citizens. His father was a short order cook and his mom cleaned houses. He went to San Fernando Valley High School, where he played baseball, and later went to MIT and got A degree in engineering. He returned to Los angeles in the 1990s to run for the Los Angeles City Council. He became the youngest City Council president in the city of Los Angeles history. He went on to become a state senator in California, the Secretary of State of California, and then was appointed the junior US Senator at the time when Kamala Harris became the Vice President of the United States by Governor Gavin Newsom. He's now duly elected. But this is a uniquely personal issue for Alex Padilla, who has long fought for the rights of immigrants, not just in Los Angeles and not just in California, but for immigrants, undocumented people, the 11 million or so that are here across the United States of America. And so he was coming here to follow up on a long line of work that he has done on this issue over the course of his career. So if you're thinking that Alex Padilla came in here, Kristi Noem called it political theater. It's what the Democrats are calling what's happening on the streets of Los Angeles. As you look, as Ben pointed out, at these tactical officers in a several square block area in downtown la. If you look around Westwood, where I am right now, go over to ucla, it's business as usual. Other than National Guard troops that are basing themselves out of this federal building. And actually, you can see some of them right here. Nicole, if I could just point them out to you right now. This is not what you would normally see at the Federal building in Westwood. This is not what you would normally see on the streets of Los Angeles. But here we are. This is the moment that we are in. It is a moment where the senior Senator of the state of California was taken to the ground by federal agents and placed in handcuffs here at the Federal Building in Westwood. Let me play for all of you. Senator Chris Murphy reacting on the Senate floor. Speaking for myself, I don't ask law enforcement to. To throw my constituents to the ground and violently handcuff them because they have a different opinion from me. You know why I don't do that? Because we don't do that in a democracy. We don't do that against ordinary citizens. And we certainly don't allow the administration and the law enforcement that works for the administration to do that to United States Senator. This kind of violence, simply because the White House doesn't agree with people who dissent. If this is how a United States Senator can be treated, then none of us ultimately are immune. If this is how a United States Senator can be treated, none of our constituents are safe. This is a test for the country. But this is a test for the United States Senate as well. Sarah Longwell, your thoughts? Okay, so first of all, I want to pick apart something that's happening in the room, which is at the second he said, I'm Alex Padilla, I'm a United States Senator. The fact that Kristi Noem didn't call people off. Right. I mean, you just think about all the times in this country. I just most recently take Joe Biden's State of the Union when Lauren Boebert and Marjorie Taylor Greene started screaming at him during his speech. Nobody came in and dragged them out and threw them to the ground. This is not, it is not uncommon for elected officials to sort of confront each other in this way at a moment when people are paying attention. I mean, Linda McMahon from the Education Secretary, when the Democrats were out in front of the Department of Education, they invited her to the podium. She came out to sort of, you know, get into it with them, and they invited her to the podium and let her talk. There is a way in which Kristi Noem should have immediately identified him as a colleague, not as an enemy. Right. And that's an important distinction. It's a way that it is something deep we're losing in politics that she should not have intervened or that other people shouldn't have stood up and said, this is not how we treat a US Senator. We can't do this. I mean, that is her responsibility. And so the fact that she let it happen, and I'll tell you something, it's telling. She had to sort of finish 15 minute conversation with him afterwards. It's because once they realized that it was on tape, that somebody had it right, they knew this was bad because this doesn't happen. I've never seen anything like it. You see plenty of interactions with elected officials getting into it with each other. You do not see the FBI or Secret Service dragging their colleagues to the floor and cuffing them. It is not something that happens. And so the fact that she wasn't there to say, don't do this, that's sort of the scary part, that they're just letting it happen. And it's because it is the ethos of this administration to treat people not as colleagues but as enemies. Tim Miller, your thoughts? Yeah. Just one thing going off what Sarah was just saying about press conferences. This is one area where, Nicole, maybe you and I both have some expertise on this. I've, well, made me, especially because I've both been a press flack who has been trying to manage a press conference when other people have disrupted it. And I've been a disruptor of press conferences, believe it or not. And in none of those occasions where anybody touched, you know, nobody was certainly nobody was thrown to the ground. Like, this is just the nature of how politics work. And I do this, I do think that's an important thing to say because some folks who are watching this might, you know, whatever, think that he was acting inappropriately or whatever. You know, like this happens in politics. And particularly at a moment like this, you know, where there's all these extreme things that are happening in California targeting Senator Padilla's constituents, it is almost called for and makes sense for him to take this opportunity. Kristi Noemi's in his state, the MAGA folks like, to a big talking point right now is that people voted for this. Well, the people of California didn't vote for this. They voted for Alex Padilla. And so he has a right to represent his constituents just as much as Donald Trump has a right to try to enact the policies that he thinks that he was elected on. I just think that's one element about the press conference side of this. The other thing about dhs, and you played that from Chris Murphy. It was about a month ago that Chris Murphy was asking Kristi Noem in a hearing about dhs and he was listing about how this agency is out of control and how it's a lawless agency. And he listed a handful of things among them the fact that they're spending way more money than they have been allotted by Congress. She is illegally spending money that they don't have on immigration enforcement and on ICE officials. That's one element talked about the way that they're doing immigration enforcement. I mean, we've talked a lot about the Venezuelans that they snatched off the street and then kidnapped and sent to El Salvador or what we've seen with, you know, Mahmoud Khalil or other ways where they've been going around the law to do immigration enforcement. And that is happening right now in LA too, as we speak. They are racially targeting to Ben Rhodes point companies where a lot of Hispanic folks work. They're going in there without, you know, deportation notices. They're just doing random sweeps, racially targeted. They're harassing people that are legal residents that don't have their papers or whatever. Maybe in some cases they do have their papers. They don't believe them because they're speaking, because their English is not good enough for the officers, like across all these things. So the DHS is acting lawlessly this is not a one off thing where there are three random cops who, who roughed up Padilla and maybe they were acting inappropriately. This is DHS's movie. I want to press all of you. I want to pick up Sarah where you and Tim have brought us. And that's sort of the lack of any instincts toward de escalation because I think it's a metaphor for what's happening on the streets as well. I think I have to sneak at a quick break, but we'll all be back on the other side. We'll have much more of today's breaking news. We'll also have a chance to speak live with Senator Sheldon Whitehouse and Congresswoman Mikey, Sheriff Carol. We'll talk to them about all of this and the silence, the deafening silence this afternoon from as of 4:21pm in the east, the entire elected Republican Party, all of that and more when Dead Than White House continues after a quick break. Don't go anywhere today. This is an assault not only on the person of Alex Padilla, but it's an assault on our Percy. This is a administration that has no respect for our democracy, for our institutions, for the separation of powers, for a co equal branch of government. It has no respect for the people of California. This is a president who would call in military troops against the wishes of our own government when it would only inflame the matter. And now this. This administration is not about law and order. It's about lawlessness and disorder. And that's what we've seen from day one. MSNBC's Jen Psaki, host of the Briefing We've never experienced a moment like this in our country. And it leaves us all with a choice. Are we going to speak out or are we going to be pressured into silence? I've worked for presidents. I've faced the tough questions from the press and even threats from the Kremlin. And if there's one thing I've learned, it's that you can't cower to bullies. You don't need to be hopeless. We have our voices and I will continue using mine. The Briefing with Jen Psaki Tuesday through Friday at 9:00pm Eastern on MSNBC. Hey, everyone, it's Chris Hayes. This week on my podcast, why Is this Happening? Co host of the Bloomberg Odd Lots podcast, Joe Weisenthal. There's the story of the real economy and then there's the story of the financial markets. But I also think there is this sort of distinction. And maybe you could call it political, maybe you could call it geopolitical I'm not sure. So there's other story which is just about Trump the character as he tries to negotiate in the world and establish himself right as the master negotiator, which he seems to see himself as a deals person. That's this week on why Is this Happening? Search for why Is this Happening? Where you're listening right now and follow. Stay up to date on the biggest issues of the day with the MSNBC Daily Newsletter. Each morning you'll get analysis by experts you trust, video highlights from your favorite shows. I do think it's worth being very clear eyed, very realistic about what's going on here. Previews of our podcasts and documentaries, plus written perspectives from the newsmakers themselves, all sent directly to your inbox each morning. Get the best of MSNBC all in one place. Sign up for msnbc daily@msnbc.com 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. And this man started lunging towards the podium, interrupting me and elevating his voice, and was stopped, did not identify himself and was removed from the rooms. If he had requested a meeting, I would have loved to have sat down and had a conversation with him. That 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. So we sat down, had a conversation. We probably disagree on 90% of the topics, 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. Sir. Sir. Hands up. Hands up. Senator Alex Padilla. I have questions for the secretary because the fact of the matter is a half a dozen violent criminals that you're rotating on your. On your. I also want to. How many of our ICE agents have been docked? On the ground. On the ground. On the ground. Hands behind your back. Hands behind your back. Behind my back. All right, cool. One hand. Lay flat. Lay flat. Other hand, sir, other hand. It's the anatomy of a lie. We don't often get to see it. The lie told on Fox News. The smiling anchor nodding along. Who had access to the video that disproves the lie being told by the government official. The same government official who thinks this is what habeas corpus is. The secretary Nome, what is habeas corpus? Well, habeas corpus is a constitutional right that the president has to be able to remove people from this country, suspend their rights. Let me Let me stop, ma' am. Habeas corpus. Excuse me, That's. That's incorrect. President. Excuse me. Habeas corpus is the legal principle that requires that the government provide a public reason for detaining and imprisoning people. If not for that protection, the government could simply arrest people, including American citizens, and hold them indefinitely for no reason. Habeas corpus is the foundational right that separates free societies like America from police states like North Korea. Felt like an important tape to rewind, like on a day like today. JACOB Soborough what comes to my mind, Nicole, is what Tom Homan told me on Saturday night when I met him at the beginning of these raids in that loading dock down in Long beach, that he was not ruling out the idea of arresting the sitting governor of California, duly elected Gavin Newsom, nor the mayor of Los Angeles, Karen Bass, if. If they interfered with ICE operations. And he said at that point they had not. And obviously these are not ICE agents. These were most likely members of the security detail of Secretary Kristi Noem, which were in all likelihood, as you see, some members of the National Guard come out of the federal building here of the Secret Service. But this is the environment that we are now in where the arrest of sitting members of the United States Senate, the senior senator from the state of California is, you know, I hate to say it, not surprising or not out of the realm of conversation that we have been having over the course of the last several days. And as you watch National Guard troops walk in and out of the federal building here, where people come to literally renew their passports, I just ran into somebody who I know who was here to renew their passports because this is a neighborhood that I grew up in and around. This is a building of sort of quotidian activities on a normal day. And instead it has become the site of a US Senator placed into handcuffs by the security detail of the Secretary of Homeland Security when he said he wanted to ask questions and hadn't been able to about the ongoing immigration enforcement, widespread, wide scale mass deportation effort on the streets of Los Angeles at the Home Depots that I've reported from for you at the. The farm I reported from for you yesterday, places that we have not seen in previous administrations to go. Jacob the officers who move Senator Padilla out of the press conference room and push his body down to lay flat, face down on the ground are wearing jackets that say FBI on them. Have we confirmed that they're FBI agents? We don't have confirmation of that yet. But this building is home to many different federal law enforcement agencies. And so we'll certainly effort that. Nicole, I don't want to give you an answer that I'm not 100% certain of. Sarah, let me ask you to pick up on the point you were making before the break about Kristi Noem. She rose, you know, like a firework, if you will, in VP stakes and then seemed to sabotage her own chances when she wrote, in her own words, her own telling of her experience murdering her own dog by shooting, her own description of frisky puppy in the face. This is someone for whom sadistic conduct toward animals at least was part of her brand. How do you think she's writing this out in terms of the manner in which she went on FOX News seeming confident that no one would check her facts? Yeah. Well, what's interesting is her accusing somebody else of performative theater because nobody has done more cosplaying. You know, she's constantly dressing herself up like federal agents. She's constantly putting detainees behind her for photo ops, which is some of the grossest behavior behavior I've ever seen out of a public official. But, Nicole, I also want to pick up on something that you're talking about, which is the lies that Republicans are telling. So one thing that has been interesting, you saw a lot of people, you know, in the tech community and conservatives talk about how you needed Trump to be a free speech president. He was going to be a free speech president. We have to have free speech in this country. Well, a sitting senator should be able to ask a question of the head of Department of Homeland Security. And in fact, I find it odd that Kristi Noemi wouldn't recognize Senator Alex Padilla. I mean, he is the ranking member, I believe, on one of the immigration committees. So the idea that she absolutely doesn't know who he is is absurd. But, you know, you've got Donald Trump saying if people show up to protest his tanks in the streets, that they're going to be met with incredible force. Well, he's not talking about violence. He's not talking about riots. He's talking about people who show up to protest the tanks in the streets that they will be met with force. I mean, this is what this administration is doing. This is not singular. This is not one. This is about how this entire administration is approaching people who dissent. And so nobody better come here and try to tell me this is a free speech president or a free speech administration. Her reasoning for the treatment of Senator Alex Padilla is that he was disrespectful, being disrespectful is not a reason to handcuff somebody on the ground. It's just not. Not even a U.S. senator. Right. It's not. And I gotta say, my last thing is Republican senators should be very careful on this right now. If they do not come out and defend Senator Padilla's right to ask questions of this administration, of his colleagues, they are setting an extraordinarily dangerous precedent for how senators are going to be treated in this country. They should protect their own institution. They should have an interest in their office being protected from this kind of behavior, because they're all going to want to ask questions at some point, accountability questions of their leadership. And that is right. And it's American. I mean, Ben, it does feel like the fabric of the country is ripping before our very eyes. Yeah. Because it's moving so fast. You know, I mean, and that's why I was emphasizing earlier the fact that we're here in the fifth month. We are just not accustomed to this. And I think that the Trump administration is trying to move with. With dispatch, with speed, to kind of snuff out any capacity for there to be accountability for there. Any capacity for there to be efforts to ask questions, for any possibility of there to be peaceful protest. Again, it's really important to fact check. They keep talking about the fact that they needed to send these troops to Los Angeles to stop the city from burning down. That was just not. There's no indication whatsoever that there was any requirement for these troops. Then they send in the guard, then they send in the Marines. This is just not something that happens. But they're trying to move so fast that it becomes normal. It becomes normal that you can't ask us questions. It becomes normal that you can't protest. The troops start for one purpose to protect the ICE raids, and then they seem to have a different purpose, which is to prevent peaceful people protest, perhaps. You know. And so you see this kind of expansion of the authority of the federal government. And just to build on something Sarah said by Republicans, it's absolutely the case on the free speech point, I guess free speech is you get to sit on your couch and tweet whatever you want, but you can't go out in the public square. This country was founded because Americans didn't like the fact that a king sent his troops to stop them from being able to protest in the public square. But the other thing I'd say, Nicole, is it used to be Republicans, it used to be libertarians who had conspiracy theories about the possibility that the military might be in the streets. What is happening right now is precisely what people like Marco Rubio used to say is why we can't have socialism in this country. Or people down in Texas had conspiracy theories when I was in the White House that Barack Obama had some secret plan to send the military in the streets. They are in the streets right now. They've been sent there by a Republican president. This is, you know, the live free or die community in the Republican Party coalition. I do wonder how they're going to take to this. But I think Trump is trying to move so fast that you kind of can't ask those questions. We've been boiling. The frog's been boiling in the water for so long now that it's not that crazy. Like, when I saw the thing that Alex Padilla, this happened to him, I wasn't that surprised. And that's, to me, what is so dangerous here. The fabric is just being ripped. It's not happening slowly. They're just trying to kind of bring us into a new reality, which is their reality. Before we can do anything to roll it back. We have an answer already to Sarah's question about Republicans, at least on the House side. I'm actually not going to play this, but Tim Miller, Speaker Johnson. I've been asked to play it. Let me play this. It's not my decision to make. I'm not in that chamber. But I do think that it merits immediate attention by their colleagues over there and that they. I think that that behavior, at a minimum, is. It rises to the level of a censure. I think there needs to be a message sent by the body as a whole that that is not what we are going to do. That's not how we're going to act. We're not going to have branches fighting physically and having senators charging Cabinet secretaries. We got to do better. Okay, so if we're going to play that, I want to play the tape one more time. Anatomy of a lie is that the lie is separated from the tape. Please roll the tape, sir. Hands up. Hands up. Senator Alex Padilla. I have questions for the secretary because the fact of the matter is a half a dozen violent criminals that you're rotating on your. On your hands behind your back. Hands on your back. It in my hands. Go ahead, hide behind my back. All right, cool. One hand. Lay flat. Lay flat. Other hand, sir. Other hand. There's no recording loud out here. I do not know. There's no recording allowed out here, Per. So Jim Miller, the victim, is who? Speaker Johnson would like to see censured Yeah. I mean, you can't even see Kristi Noem in the video. It's hard to tell. This notion that he was some physical threat to her is just absurd. And he's getting manhandled and bullied and thrown to the ground. It's sick. And it's hard to even dignify what Mike Johnson said with a response. It's related to what you said right before the break, Nicole, about how they're not interested in de escalating. They actually want to escalate. There's an article in the in Real Clear Politics, a conservative website. This morning they interviewed a bunch of Republican strategists and folks in the Hill. Mike Johnson might even been quoted story, if I recall, about how they want this fight. They think that a fight over disorder in the streets of California is a winner for them politically and is going to be their path to have a better midterm. And they're not hiding it. It's not like a conspiracy theory of the anti Trump crowd that are saying that Trump wants escalation and that MAGA Republicans want escalation in the streets of la. They're saying it like they, they are. Their explicit policy efforts is they want to turn the heat up. They want it to seem like things are out of control because they think that's a political winner for them. And that goes back to what you and Ben were talking about about propaganda earlier and why they're replaying the same videos over and over again of some legitimately bad things that some folks are doing. But they're trying to blow it out of proportion and they're trying to instigate it because they think it's a political winner, because that's part of the playbook that they have put forth for seizing more power. And so I think that ties directly to the speaker's response there. I'm going to ask all of you to stay with us. On the other side of a very short break. Senator Padilla's colleague, Senator Sheldon Whitehouse will join us as well as Congresswoman Mikey Sherrill. Again, again, shortened break. We'll be right back with both of them joining our coverage. Where are the Republicans? Why is it only Democrats who are calling this out? Why is it only Democrats who are pointing out that when a member of Congress is doing his or her job, then that member of Congress should be allowed to do that and should not end up in handcuffs? And so far, the only thing we have gotten from any of the Republicans is to try to blame Senator Padilla for actually doing what it is that he swore to do, and that is to do his job as a senator to uphold the Constitution of the United States. So we're going to stay there, keep asking the Republicans to step up and to give us an investigation, an independent investigation into what happened. Turning our coverage Democratic Senator Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island. Senator, your reaction to the day's events? I think it's never a good look for America when law enforcement force is being used in political disputes, whether it's fire hoses and dogs and John Lewis being beaten to the ground in the civil rights movement or, you know, worse episodes from history in 1930s Europe. This is not who we are. This is a bad day for Lady Liberty. The lamp is not being held very high right here. I think that the next few days are going to be very telling. The big question here now in my mind is what will Alex Padilla's Republican Senate colleagues do? And to me, this is the Joe McCarthy era at last. Have you no sense of decency moment? And it's time for our Republican senator friends to call this and let the Trump administration know this crap has to stop. That when you are fighting senators to the ground who are clearly not a threat to anyone, just to make a point that something has gone very, very badly wrong. And I'll commend Alex, man, he held his temper and kept his cool pretty well considering he was being assaulted by multiple individuals. So physical force to silence a US Senator is not a good look for America. Moments after he was forcibly placed on the ground face down and handcuffed with his hands behind his back, Kristi Noem went on Fox News and said this, quote, he didn't identify himself. The tape, which I played nearly a dozen times, you can hear him identifying himself. I'm Senator Alex Padilla. How do Democrats make sure that the truth travels as quickly as the lies in this precarious moment? Well, that's a very good question because they have a very robust distribution system for their lies. And they have generally a very accommodating group of Republicans in the Senate and the House were willing to echo their lies. Look how quickly speak. The speaker went into echo the lie mode. So this really puts that, I think, really back very personally. You know, the Senate, there are a hundred of us. Yeah. And we're there for a long time. So we're closer than a high school class. Right. And we know each other. And Alex Padilla is known to be a very decent, thoughtful, kind individual. And if this can happen to him, this can happen to anyone. And at some point, the Republican senators are going to have to step up and be heard about this and put a stop to this kind of behavior, put a marker down that it is not tolerable to use law enforcement violence to silence a colleague. Where does your head go at this question that Senator Padilla offered to all of us members of the press covering this extraordinary day, that if they could do this to him, imagine what they're doing to his constituents, the farm workers or the restaurant workers or others. Yeah, I mean, I think that's very true. And I think to some degree, this is being celebrated by the far right extremists as a demonstration of just how far they are willing to go. The campaign of bullying and threats that Republicans have seen in the Senate to try to make sure they line up behind unqualified and even disqualified nominees. All of that power, all of that pressure, all of that force, this is an administration that wants to communicate its willingness to use force and violence and threats to anyone. And so to make the point that we'll do it to a United States Senator sends ripples across the megaverse that, yeah, this is the way we roll and we'll do it to anybody. Bring it. And that's just a really sickening way to think about governance in the United States of America. A government of separated powers where Alex Padilla represents the fourth largest economy in the world and a big and proud state senator. Whitehouse, thank you as always, for your candor and your time and for joining us. Joining our coverage, Democratic Congresswoman Mikey Sherrill of New Jersey. She's also the newly minted Democratic candidate for governor of New Jersey. Congresswoman, first, your reaction to the events as they're unfolding both on the streets of California, with the National Guard there against the wishes of that state's governor, as well as the 700 Marines who have been mobilized. And of course, the story we've been covering, all the manhandling of Senator Alex Padilla. Yeah, I think what we're seeing is this attempt to incite disturbances and violence as an excuse for consolidating power by President Trump. And so I've served as a Navy helicopter pilot. I served for almost 10 years. I've also served as a federal prosecutor and worked closely with law enforcement, which is why I can tell you from my experience that those are two very different missions. The difference between having law enforcement and public safety officers on the street and having military people who are trained in combat to fight wars overseas, it's why it's very disfavored to have our military on the streets in the United States of America only in the most extreme situations. It's why when President Trump tried to do this in his last administration, you had so many admirals and generals lining up saying, look, this is not okay. Admiral McRaven, Admiral Mullen, Admiral Stavridos, General Milley, General Esper, all saying, you can't do this. You know, this is not the right use of troops. It puts people on the street in danger. And our troops aren't trained for this. And we know that law enforcement in LA doesn't have any. They have no connection with the Pentagon. They don't know how these forces have been trained. And what's more, we see overseas there is so much going on. So now you're spending millions of dollars putting these Marines in the streets with no mission that's been defined. Senator Hegseth was questioned yesterday about under what authority and he seemed not to know, which is shocking. And then we're having these professionally trained Marines standing around and loitering in la. It seems as if just to present a threat really to the people there. And furthermore, you see Senator United States, Senator Padilla being treated as he was, as again, you know, you sort of start to think that your ability to be shocked by the actions of this Trump administration, you feel like you're going to become numb to it eventually. But they keep doing more shocking things. And I think people need to wake up. I think people need to realize that this is a very, very dangerous path we're on right now. If people have not realized it already, it's time to wake up and do about it. And I can tell you what we saw in New Jersey, with the record level of turnout in the Democratic primary shows that people are ready to fight this fight. I mean, respectfully, I think the base of the Democratic Party and many who associate themselves with the pro democracy movement has felt very awake since the morning after Election Day. And they've been eager to see Democratic leaders match their intensity and their appetite to fight what feels like the ripping up of the fabric of our country, something that isn't just Republican in nature, but autocratic in nature. Do you feel like this is a tipping point for Democratic leaders to join voters and pro democracy activists in their desire to fight harder for Democratic ideals in America? Nicole, look, I'm running for governor of New Jersey because that is where I think the fight is. That is where I think we need to lead, because it's one of only two states in the entire nation where we have a Statewide election going on. It's why I've been meeting with thousands of people across the state. And I can tell you, I don't think in New Jersey we're feeling that lack of leadership. People are getting out. I anticipate thousands of people out on Saturday to protest the military parade. I think people are feeling very well, you know, very well engaged and that there is a fight that we have on our hands and we are all ready to make sure that in New Jersey we are both fighting back against this administration, but fighting for the people of New Jersey, driving down costs there so people can afford to stay in New Jersey. And I think that becomes even more important as we see the attacks from the federal government. Yeah. Congressman Mikey Sherrill, thank you for joining us. Please come back anytime. Thank you. Thanks so much. I want to come back to you, Ben. I want to bring our viewers up to speed with a few developments since we've been on the air. Dan Bongino is the deputy director of the FBI with this statement, quote, with regard to the incident in LA this afternoon, the senator in question was not wearing a security pin and physically resisted law enforcement when confronted. Our FBI personnel acted completely appropriately while assisting Secret Service, were grateful for their professionalism and service. So a seeming confirmation to my question to Jacob earlier that that was that the FBI was involved. Yeah. But also, just think about what you just said, the deputy director of the FBI, Dan Bongino. Right. Like a talk radio personality. That's why he's in that job. You know, we would normally like, if it was the first Trump administration and you had Chris Wray as the director of the FBI, you'd probably have, I would guess, a different reaction to that. But because the government has been populated with loyalists, it's been greased to validate whatever it does. And to Tim's point, I've been at press conferences, this thing happens all the time. Reporters stand up and interrupt and yell, never mind the United States senators. You don't wrestle them to the ground, throw them out. And frankly, if it wasn't recorded, I don't think you'd have any many need to explain things. And so we have to understand that the check is not going to come from some grownups in DOJ or at FBI. That's why people are protesting. I do think we've reached a bit of a tipping point here. It may be that Trump wants that military presence in the streets to incite, as Mickey Sheryl said, so that he kind of gets the optic of disorder that he wants. But I also think the military in the streets is kind of making people wake up and say this is getting really far, really fast. And this does kind of feel like it's a tipping point. What worries me to build on something that she said is that the military is not trained to manage these circumstances. And we could have something really just look at Kent State in history where we're one dangerous escalation away from something really bad happening. And so that's what we have to keep in mind here. There are no better humans to have spent this last hour with. So my thanks to all of you. Tim Miller, Sarah Longwell, my colleague Jacob Soborough live for us in la. And Ben Rhodes, thank you very, very much. We have much more breaking news in the next hour. We're expecting to hear from Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass. The next hour of Deadline White House starts after a very short break. Don't go anywhere today. Introducing the Weeknight on msnbc, join hosts Alicia Menendez, Michael Steele and Simone Sanders Townsend for a spirited conversation challenging each other and our leaders about the biggest issues of the day. It's about knowing what you are for, who you are for. That's what politics is about. It's engagement. We are going to dive deeper into the legal side of today's breaking news, the weeknight, Monday through Friday at 7pm Eastern on MSNBC. If this is how the Department of Homeland Security responds to a senator with a question, you can only imagine what they're doing to farm workers, to cooks, to day laborers out in the Los Angeles community and throughout California and throughout the country. We will hold this administration accountable. Hi again, everyone. It's now five o'clock in New York. That's Democratic Senator Alex Padilla of California. That was him addressing the public after a remarkable scene unfolded this afternoon at a press conference being held by Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noemi. He was at that press conference to ask questions. He identified himself as a US Senator, and then he was taken out of the room and forced to the ground and handcuffed. Watch. Sir. Sir. Hands up. Hands up. Senator Alex Padilla, I have questions for the secretary because the fact of the matter is half a dozen violent criminals knows that you're rotating. On your. On your ground. On the ground. Hands upon your back. Hands behind your back. My hands. Cool. It's hiding behind my back. All right. Cool hand. Lay flat. Lay flat. Other hand, sir. Other hand. On the ground. On the ground. On the ground. Lay flat. You're not allowed to record in here. Not things you hear every day in the United States. Of America or any democracy for that matter. The Trump administration has put itself on offense. They went on Fox News and lied about what happened. Kristi Noem saying that the senator didn't identify himself. We heard on the tape that he did. DHS also called Padilla's actions, quote, disrespectful political theater, proving once again just how dead irony is. Padilla's office said that he was in Los Angeles to, quote, exercise his duty to perform congressional oversight of the federal government's operations in Los Angeles and across California. The outcry from members of Senator Padilla's political party has been clear and swift and forceful. Democrats calling it the stuff of dictatorships and an assault on our democracy. Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass is expected to hold a press conference any minute. We'll bring it to you as soon as it gets underway. It's where we start the hour with some of our favorite experts and friends. Democratic Congressman Robert Garcia of California is here. Also joining us, retired National Guard Major general and member of the National Security Leaders for America. Randy Manor is back. And joining us for the hour, MSNBC columnist, author of the newsletter to the Contrary, Charlie Sykes is here. Congressman, I start with you. Your reaction. I mean, I think like any American that has seen that footage, I'm outraged, I'm upset. It is unacceptable that a United States senator, let alone anyone, be treated that way. This is someone that has a federal right to be there to conduct oversight. His office is in that exact same building and to be thrown to the ground and handcuffed after identifying himself. Every single American should be concerned. And if Krissi Noem and Donald Trump are willing to do that to a United States senator, they are willing to do that to any person in this country. That is the stuff of dictatorships. And we have to understand very clearly that the American people right now, we are in a dangerous moment in this country. Alex Padilla is a good man. He is someone that is doing his job. He's doing oversight. Should never have happened. And we stand with our senator. You know, there's a lot of having as one of the two ex Republicans here, there's a lot of tells in MAGA world. And the first one was that Kristi Noem raced to the camera. She did an interview on the 3pm hour on Fox and she told this lie, quote, he didn't identify himself. The lie wasn't corrected by Fox News. So now millions of people have heard that lie. You also hear on the tape that the FBI officials and Dan Bongino has confirmed that they Were FBI officials, as their jackets, indicate, saying, or someone is saying in that hallway, quote, there's no recording in here. Alex, what do you think the majority of American people think when they see this scene unfold? Robert Congressman, that was for you. Congressman. Oh, sorry, say it again. Nicole, you missed it last. Congressman, what do you think people think when they see all this with their own eyes, as opposed to digesting it in a distilled version, maybe where the lie is told about the senator not identifying him himself, or it's clear that they don't want this tape out there. You can hear on the tape they say, quote, no recording allowed. What do you think the majority of the American people think when they see the actual tape? Well, in this instance, Donald Trump and Kristi Noem cannot lie to the public because it's crystal clear that the American public can see with their very own eyes exactly why it's happening on video. And that's why it's so important that these moments are. Are recorded by the public now. They're recorded by the media and that there's access to these events. There is no one in this country that's going to watch that video and not hear Senator Padilla say that he's a United States senator. This is, by the way, happening right now across the country. What I think the public needs to understand, everyone needs to know that this is not just happening to US Senators, to members of Congress, as we saw not that long ago. This is happening to people across this country, to dishwashers. It's happening to grandparents in front of their church. It is happening to moms whose children are being ripped away from them every single day across this country. It is happening to students who are showing up to campus and are being taken away by mass agents in vans, unmarked vans. This is a state of this country, and it doesn't matter what political party you are. People need to understand that we are in danger of an authoritarian person who wants to be the king of our country, who's trying to assert power. This is about dominance. This is about making people afraid. This is about ensuring that he maintains power and he doesn't care who he hurts to get it. And everyone needs to understand that. Congressman, have you reached out to your Republican colleagues in the House or Senate? And if so, are any of them concerned with what happened in Los Angeles today? Yeah, in fact, we, a group of us, actually marched to Senator Thune's office not that long ago to his office, to demand accountability and answer. Now, he wasn't there. He's at The White House. We talked to his team and we made it very, very clear that we are demanding an investigation into what happened. Senator Thune should be, as a leader supporting his United States Senator. Speaker Johnson should be demanding an investigation. We should have seen Secretary Noem. We should have Cash Patel, the FBI in front of Congress. We have an oversight responsibility to hold these people accountable, not just for what they have done to Senator Padilla, which is an outrage, what they're doing to people across this country. It is happening every single day. And the American public need to understand that. You are next. We are next. They're going to do this to everybody. I want to to just share. The only Republicans who we have been able to identify who've expressed any concern are Senators Lisa Murkowski and Senator Susan Collins. CBS is reporting that Senator Murkowski said this, quote, I've seen that one clip. It's horrible. It is shocking at every level. It is not the America I know. Do we have sound? Let me ask my control room of Susan Collins. Let me just read this to you. Susan Collins said this quote, I think it's very disturbing. I don't know what preceded it. I was just showing the floor a small play. But it looks like he's being manhandled and physically removed. And it's hard to imagine a justification for that. But again, I don't know the details. You've just seen a video of how he's being handled and Collins says that's right. So, Congressman, that's it in terms of people expressing discontent. And Speaker Johnson, for his part called for Senator Padilla to be censured. Speaker Johnson is a disgrace. Speaker Johnson right now should be calling Congress back and investigating the FBI, Homeland Security and bringing and doing our oversight duties as to what just happened to Senator Padilla. And it's more than just Senator Padilla. This is happening to hard working people across this country. It's happening to students who are expressing the First Amendment right. It's happening literally yesterday to a grandparent who is taking her granddaughter to church. This is happening right now across the country. And it's the inhumanity. That is not what our country is about. It is the inhumanity treating people less than human. Senator Padilla was there to do his job as a United States Senator. And I remind the public he works in that exact same building. He identified himself. These next few days are going to be very important. And we need to know, is the Republican Party or House Republicans or Senate Republicans, do they actually care about this country? Do they care about us? As a democracy? And are they willing to actually defend the Constitution? Because right now they are turning their back on the very document that's made us who we are as a country. General, I'll bring you in here because on that point, they view the military as the appropriate institution to stand in the middle in this very, very volatile moment. And Congresswoman Mikey Sherrill was a guest in the last hour, bringing us back to the first time Donald Trump tried to move troops to the streets of American cities. And it's been well reported by journalists, Michael Bender and others who have written books about that first Trump presidency, that Mark Esper and Mark Milley and others confronted Stephen Miller in the Oval Office in dramatic fashion. And Trump ultimately sided with his Pentagon leadership and did not move active duty troops into the streets of America. Clearly, there's no Mark Milley or Mark Esper in Trump 2.0. And now you have 2,000 National Guardsmen and women on the streets of Los Angeles and 700 active duty Marines have been mobilized. Your thoughts today. First of all, this is absolutely wrong and damaging to the fabric of America. To put American military people on the streets of an American city in this fashion, facing Americans, what we're seeing with what happened to the senator, I have been in a military capacity. I've been in Russia. I've been in the DMZ on the edge of North Korea. I've been in Iraq. I will tell you that you can see it in the eyes of the people when they are intimidated by dictators. And I'll tell you what, I'm starting to see it here and it scares me immensely. It should scare everyone from no matter most rural town to the, to the inner city. This is not who we are. This is the suppression of the freedom of speech. It is all about the federal government stomping on states rights. And it is the misuse of the military. This is totally inappropriate. This is a law enforcement operation, not a military operation. General, how do we elevate what you just said to make sure that that which is a value, I think, to this moment mostly universally held that the men and women of the military shouldn't be part of a police force patrolling the streets of American cities. How do we push back against those? We have to continue to speak up across all forms. We have to speak up in the press, as we're doing right now. We have to speak up in our communities. We have to talk to our neighbors. We have to speak up and to raise the consciousness of America, that this is not the America that we grew up in and that we have to stop, quite frankly, treating each other like trash and disrespecting other human beings and using the military to put the military against our fellow Americans. I'm just dismayed. And as my 36 years of military service, I have never seen anything so disparaging as what is happening in LA right now and where the embers of this are actually being sewn across our country and probably will accelerate. This is not what we should do. We need to all speak up and stand up for ourselves. General, what are your concerns for this weekend? Well, I'll be speaking at one of those no Kings rallies. I will tell you that in Alexandria, Virginia. I will also tell you that people need to come out, they need to stand tall, they need to be peaceful, they need to be able to talk to people. No violence whatsoever, and people need to show up and speak out. Do you feel like this is a moment where we don't have a lot of concrete examples of these two things? One, the anatomy of a lie, where we have a tape, we have the senator identifying himself, and then we have the government official on Fox News lying about it less than an hour later. And we have examples of something that Trump wanted to do in his first term. We know who stopped him because the stories have come out. It's Mark Esper, it's Mark Milley and other members of the military. We now have a window into either Trump's lack of deference for officials. We don't know if anyone told him no, but if they said no, Trump was overruled, or he has the kinds of officials inside the military who said yes. What do those two things tell you about this moment, General? I believe that the chairman of the Joint Chiefs in his recent testimony showed that he was willing to speak to truth when he said that Russia is a threat, when he, when he communicated that Los Angeles is not the issue, not the use. I mean, I'm interpreting his words, but the idea was he was not in agreement with the president and he was speaking from his professional military perspective. We need more active duty people to be able to stand up to their chain of command, to be able to express what is right. Just like with the 82nd Airborne yesterday, I was a proud IM. I was a proud member of the 2nd Airborne at Fort Bragg. And I found it very disheartening that the chain of command had not briefed their soldiers in advance, that they should not cheer partisan comments. That is, it's not the young soldiers. They're going to get all enthusiastic about Seeing the president. And I respect that. Absolutely. I was there, and I saw presidents when I was in the 82nd as well. The important thing is this president tends to use these as political rallies and the chain of command I hold responsible for not briefing their soldiers appropriately. Charlie Sykes. There's a desperation on the right for this to be a moment that is just about immigration. The American people are not that dumb. And we talked earlier in the week and it seemed like the right might have had a run at that conversation because of their own actions. Largely. This is now about the Trump administration. At least three agencies that have identified themselves. The Department of Homeland Security, the secretary herself, the FBI, and the Secret Service, identified by Mr. Bongino in his statement. Manhandled, detained, removed, and forced to lay flat on his stomach to be handcuffed a sitting United States Senator. The lie was told on Fox News. That could easily be separated from the truth, which is on the tape that circulated almost immediately. And at the same time, we have crossed the Rubicon of National Guardsmen and women and 700 active duty Marines patrolling the streets of Los Angeles. Your thoughts? Well, we have crossed the Rubicon. We have broken the glass. We have done all these things. You know, I'd watched that video of Senator Padilla probably a dozen times and then. But watching you replay it, it is still so appalling what we just saw. You know, the thug ification of the Trump admin is not a new phenomenon, but is rarely so graphically on display. Watching a United States Senator being pushed to the ground and being handcuffed. I mean, we need to stop right here. This was shocking. But I have to say, Nicole, far more shocking and more ominous has been the response, because it's certainly possible that there was a misunderstanding and that they just simply didn't know. And in a normal universe, what you do is you would apologize. Hey, really, we're sorry. We did not know that a United States Senator should never be treated like that. This, we do stand up for free speech. This is the kind of give and take that takes place in the United States of America. But they didn't. Because in this administration, they not only never apologize, they are continually escalating, they are continually trying to move the line. And the fact that you had Kristi Noem lie was bad enough, but the fact that they continue to double down and that you have a hack like Dan Bongino defending what was going on, clearly an egregious abuse of power. And then the speaker of the Congress of the United States of the House of Representatives now completely on board with what is going to be the MAGA talking point, that the bad guy in this scenario is United States senator, an elected United States senator in his own state, trying to ask a question of a member of the administration that that person is the one who ought to be censured. So. So once again, you know, a lot of our conversations sometimes seem circular because we're talking about what the Trump administration has done. But the fact that they are embracing and celebrating this shocking episode tells you the direction that we're heading. The directional arrow here, that they are trying to desensitize us to these kinds of abuses, they're trying to numb us, they're trying to normalize whatever word you want to do. But I think one of the most disturbing things and, and I've been sitting around all afternoon being, number one, shocked by the treatment of Senator Padillo and how dismaying that is. But the big tell is going to be in the next 24 hours, and you've. You have highlighted it. Will anyone speak out against this, or will MAGA be shoulder to shoulder defending it? And my guess is that what you're going to see is a celebration of this escalation of violence. So for people who think, think that, my God, the American people are gonna see this and they're going to be shocked. MAGA has decided that they like this sort of thing. And to the point that Senator Padilla was making, that if they treat a United States senator this way, how will they treat the average United. The average citizen, the person who doesn't have power, who is not wealthy, who is not connected, who does not have a title? And he's absolutely right. And MAGA is saying, damn right, this is what we're going to do. And this is an administration that is openly saying, we want to. We will arrest judges, we arrest mayors, we will arrest governors, take them at their word. But again, this is not same old, same old. And the fact that they are willing to treat a senator this way, celebrate the treating of the senator this way, defend it, is, I think, a very ominous tale. And I think this weekend we're gonna have a very, very dramatic split screen in America. We're going to have this military parade, and then we're gonna have millions of Americans who are going to decide that there are no guardrails except for us, and those are going to be the guardrails. But it is a. It is a moment where you really do feel that we're on the brink. Congressman Garcia, I know you have work to do. If anything Changes. Just wave a hand and we'll put you right back on the air. We'll be here till 6 o' clock. Thank you very much for spending time with us. General CHARLIE I'm going to ask you guys to stick around ahead for us. Together we are waiting for the mayor of Los Angeles, Mayor Karen Bass. She's expected to hold a news conference this hour. She's expected to address what we all watched with our own eyes today, the forcible removal, manhandling and handcuffing of United States Senator from California, Alex Padilla. We'll bring you those comments when they get underway. Deadline White House continues after a quick break. Don't go anywhere. You are looking at a live picture from Los Angeles, California, where Mayor Karen Bass is moments away from holding a news conference where we expect she will address what happened today when Senator Alex Padilla of California was forcibly removed and pushed to the ground after identifying himself as a US Senator and trying to ask a question about the administration's immigration policy of DHS Secretary Kristi Noem, who was in his state for press reasons or others. We're back with Major General Randy Manor and Charlie Sykes. General, what is your counsel for the American people who may watch all this, who may take Senator Padilla's words to heart, say, quote, if they treat me like this, what do you think they're doing to others and may feel scared? I truly believe that people have to speak out, they have to show up, they have to use their voice, just like these young citizen soldiers and these young Marines. They did not sign up this kind of a mission. I've been talking indirectly to many of the people from family support groups, from those Guardsmen, not from the Marines, but from the Guardsmen. And they're taking them away from their homes, they're taking them away from their civilian jobs and they're putting them on the streets of LA against their own American citizens as political pawns and it's just not the right mission. Again, I say this is a law enforcement operation, should not be a military. Our military needs to be de escalated so that everyone will be in a better position at the end. I hope that cooler minds prevail and this happens. We need to speak up to our elected representatives, whether they are red or blue, and say enough is enough. Major General Randy Manor, thank you for being part of our coverage and for sticking around. I know we went a little long. Charlie Sykes, I guess I would put Mike Johnson's response that the answer to what happened today in California is to, quote, censure Senator Padilla, in the category of shocking but not surprising, there is some sense that Thune may, I don't know. I feel dumb even saying this. There's some hope that Thune may say something less obnoxious and unproductive, but I think that might be a fool's errand. Where's your head on who Senator Thune is in this really feels like unfurling nightmare? Well, we're going to find out very, very shortly and it's going to be definitive. Let's go back to Speaker Mike Johnson. And you know, we've used that phrase, you know, shocked but not surprised. I'm shocked and shocked by all of this because it was such a clear red line. You know, it is so fundamentally un American. And once again, the Congress, at some point you would hope or you would expect it would stand up for itself. The minimal level of dignity that we do not handcuff members of Congress for asking, asking questions, for speaking out. We do not defend that. Now, clearly the orders came down from the White House that he had to do this. Stephen Miller might have been on the phone. Who knows, but the fact that he'd be willing to go along with all of this, and again, you know, it's no longer surprising the willingness of members of Congress, particularly the Republicans, to turn themselves into potted plants. But this was one of those moments where, and again, I hate to keep coming back to this, but here, you know, with just a modicum of decency, you say, that was really unfortunate. We're really sorry, Senator Padilla. You know, we disagree. But let's talk about it. Let's not lie about it, let's not defend this. Let's not try to talk about censorship here. But again, if cruelty is the point, then so is the brutality and so is this conflict. And I, you know, I quoted Game of Thrones on your show the other day. Keep in mind that for this administration, chaos is a ladder. They embrace the chaos and this feeds into it. And if that chaos includes arresting and humiliating and handcuffing Democratic elected officials, they're going to do it. They are okay with that. They are prepping their base to accept it, to ask for it and to cheer it on. And we ought to have, we should have no illusions that in fact, this ratchet has moved today and is moving in real time right now with every reaction and non reaction from members of Congress who refused to stand up for one of their colleagues who was doing a job for his constituents, the job that he was elected to do in his home state. So every moment that passes, that line is moving. And again, this takes place in the context of the militarization of law enforcement, this military parade. And quite frankly, keep in mind the radical, the administration's attempt to radicalize the troops. I mean, it is alarming enough, as the general has said, that we're using these troops. But keep in mind what happened at Fort Bragg the other day, where the president did not just simply use the troops as props, but seems to want to radicalize them as agents of the MAGA movement. That's one of the reasons why I think, so many people have that knot in their stomach. They realize that they're living in a very different society. It was very interesting hearing Ben Rhodes in the last hour say we've actually already gone past the tipping point of countries like Hungary. We keep, you know, you and I were warning a year ago and accused of Trump derangement syndrome for saying Donald Trump wants to be like Victor Orban in Hungary. And as Ben Rhodes pointed out, we've gone way past anything that Viktor Orban might have imagined in his campaign to destroy democratic institutions. Well, there's also an adaptive human thing going on where the traumatized brain adapts to the moment by saying, well, the courts are holding. And that's true, the courts are holding. But that doesn't mean that the people get getting swept up and put in bans aren't traumatized for the months that it takes for the courts to do, to work through these cases. And I wonder if there isn't something meant to survive the trauma to our democracy, to the fabric of our democracy that is lulling people. I don't think people are complacent, certainly not viewers of this program, certainly not the Democratic leaders or the Democratic members who have spoken out forcefully and with clarity today. But there does seem to be a successful shock and awe that the Trump team has executed in these 130 days. There has been, and I am probably somewhat more optimistic about the courts holding the line. However, this is again, one of those moments where, where don't expect that the courts are going to really draw a red line about the use of the military. I did a podcast with our mutual friend Harry Littman the other day, and he said, you know, it's very possible that they will greenlight his use of these military, military forces. And that opens up a real Pandora's box. So I do think he was successful in the shock and awe. But I do sense that that is changing. I mean, you'll just watching the reaction today of members of Congress who have gone through the motions in some ways, I don't want to be too critical of them, but you can see that they are fully aroused to the threat. And I think that. And I just sense that the visuals right now are so dramatic and will be so dramatic over the next couple of weeks that you're going to see that the American people are realizing, you know what? No one's coming to save us. The courts aren't coming to save us. Congress is not coming to save us. The media is not coming to save us. You have to go out and you have to do this. And that, I think, is the tipping point. That, I think is the other tipping point. Well, here's the other thing. I think it's complete. I'm going to quote Bill Barr here. Bullshit. That this is all political winner. It can't be a political winner when Trump is tanking the economy and a political winner when Trump is arresting Democratic senators. It's all political win, political losering. It's all a loser. And the reason, the pace is the point, the pace is how they win. All of these things in isolation are losers. Trump tanking the economy, 33% of Americans are into what hasn't hit them yet. But what he plans to do on tariffs, 34% of Americans are into his absolute failure to make anything cheaper. That's his approval rating, inflation. His approval rating on immigration is plunging because Carol, that was a woman who was deported from a small, completely red community in Missouri, a completely red state that turned the city against Donald Trump's immigration policy en masse. There are people who have been deported from tiny communities in Texas along the border, communities that voted for Donald Trump ripped apart because not a policy that they like. It's a person that they love more. And I wonder what you make of sort of the psyops on the right that if you're talking immigration, Trump's winning. The facts are some of the protests were unruly. No one defended that. And the people who carried out any criminal activities were arrested in Los Angeles by law enforcement. What do you make of sort of the state of misdirection in the MAGA media bubble? Okay, well, let me take it from a different point of view, whether or not this is winning or losing, because I don't disagree. I do think there are political risks for both sides, frankly, and what's happening in Los Angeles. But you know what? Let's say, just for the sake of argument, that Donald Trump is winning and that the forces of democracy are losing. This is one of Those moments where I think we need to clarify that sometimes losing causes are worth fighting for and that sometimes the losing cause is the fight most worth fighting for. So this weekend, as people think, don't ask, are we winning? Are we losing? It's like, is this right or is this wrong? Is this worth defending or not? What position will I take right now? And if at the end of the day, the forces of autocracy in fact have the upper hand and are polling well, that doesn't matter. I think should not matter to people who believe in doing the right thing. So let's not phrase everything in terms of what does a focus group say? What does a poll say? Again, this was something that I was imbued with by my father who's over my shoulder right now. World War II veterans said, you know, sometimes the losing causes are the ones that are the most important to fight. I don't think this is a losing cause, but I just want, I just want people to keep that in mind. Yeah, it's like almost become this tick, this psychological barrier to doing the right thing. Wow. Maga doesn't mind. @ some point our kids are watching and it's about doing the right thing. I want to show you what Pete Buttigieg had to say today, Charlie. We name what just happened, which is that the Trump government has crossed one of the reddest of red lines that can exist in a free society. Any salute to the flag or talk of patriotism or American greatness is completely hollow if you do not respect the freedoms that that flag represents, the Constitution that directs the course of this country, and they've shown what they think of those freedoms and that Constitution. Now what? Well, much will depend on the courage of members of the Senate and the House, especially Republicans. This kind of thing is designed to make them more afraid. Our job as American citizens is to make sure that they realize they have more politically to lose by riding the tiger of this out of control administration, which will sooner or later eat them too, then going along with it, that's going to take all of us raising our voices like never before so that something like this can never happen again. I love citizen Pete. I love riding the tiger. Your thoughts, Charlie Sykes. That was tone perfect. Pete Buttigieg has a way of putting this, I think that's very, very effectively. And you know, when he was talking about just all the values of patriotism and saluting the flag, these were things that not that long ago all Republicans would have said. A Republican, you could certainly imagine, can't you, Nicole? In the before times, that that would have been a speech from Republicans. And the fact that now it is so alien is just an indication of how strange our world is, how bizarre and aberrant it is. And so he's absolutely right that. And I think the important thing is he's appealing to fundamental American values, baseline American values. And I think that that's the point, is that you look at what was happening with Senator Padilla or, you know, the militarization of these issues, and you say, is that who we are? I mean, maybe it is who we are right now. But I do think that for Americans who go, no, I kind of remember in America, when I saluted the flag, I was saluting other freedoms and other values, and that's not who I am. Let me just tell our viewers, Alicia Menendez has joined the table. We're going to get to her bright spot of news. It's all that we have today. But first we're going to listen to Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass. We are a city of faith, we are a city of believers, and we are a city of dreamers. So let's just remember why we are here today. Last Thursday, ICE entered our city and provoked the city by chasing people through Home Depots and car washes and showing up at schools and today showing up at emergency rooms and homeless shelters. ICE intervened as a pretext to federalize the National Guard. And then in the White House, the National Guard was complimented for the work that they did to keep peace in the city Saturday night. But I will tell you, the Guard didn't even arrive here until Sunday. They used this as a pretext to send the US Marines into an American city which will target our own citizens. They've been threatening elected officials with arrests, and they just shoved and cuffed a sitting UN Senator. How could you say that you did not know who he was? We see the videotape. We see him saying who he was. But how do you not recognize one of two senators in our state? And he is not just any senator. He is the first Latino citizen senator to ever represent our state. The images we have seen of our city over the past week, the rage, the vandalism, the looting, none of that is la. Los Angeles is who you see behind me. Representatives of the faith community, the business community, community organizations. Yesterday, I stood at this podium with over 30 mayors from Los Angeles county who are all concerned about what is going on. Los Angeles is a Jewish community, a Muslim community, a Christian community, and many other faiths. Los Angeles is Chinatown, Little Tokyo, Filipino town, Koreatown Thai town, the south la, African American Community, the Chamber of Congress, the Central City association. This is LA and we are united. And I just want to say that I was listening to the words of the secretary at the press conference describing LA as a war zone. It is my understanding that she arrived here late last night, was here for a few hours today, and came to that conclusion. There's no one up here that sees Los Angeles like that. And I know as the press, you know, this is not all of Los Angeles. This is isolated to a few blocks in a city that is over 500 square miles. And out of those 500 square miles, the protests, and especially the protests that devolved into vandalism represents about half a square mile. So the notion that this is happening all over our city, the notion of that this city is not governable, the notion that we need the military to intervene, we have the capacity to address these problems. And I know there's not a person up here that supports vandalism, that supports violence and that understands if you support the immigrant community, you know how to do it in a peaceful manner. We are proud to say that we have a well established, a well respected immigrant right organizations that have been holding protests for years and years that have never devolved into violence. And so to characterize what is going on as our city is a city of mayhem is just an outright lie. I'm not going to call it an untruth, I'm not going to sugarcoat it. I'm going to call it for what it is, which is a lie. And I just have to say I served with the Secretary, I served with the Secretary for probably about 10 years in Congress. And Madam Secretary, I do not recognize you anymore. I do not know Christy Noem that I served with for 10 years. So no matter what happens out of White House, the White House, we will always uphold and reflect what Los Angeles and the United States of America are truly about. Freedom, tolerance, and for God's sake, our Constitution. A forceful press conference there remarks from Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass addressing the unprecedented manhandling and removal by force of United States Senator Padilla while attending a press conference and asking a question about the Trump administration's immigration policies. We're going to turn now to art imitating life imitating art imitating life. A brand new show playing on Broadway. A timely reminder of the history of this flashpoint playing out on the streets of Los Angeles. A moving, Tony nominated performance about what life is like right now, today for immigrant communities living today in fear of the kind of ICE raids that are happening on the streets of Los Angeles and increasingly all across our country, in towns and cities, big and small. Real Women have Curves. The musical, as we said, was Tony nominated this year. It is co produced by the closest friend. This show has my friend and colleague Alicia Menendez. The production follows the story of a young woman, a US citizen in 1987 Los Angeles and a group of undocumented workers at a garment factory, including her mom, living in constant fear of what is gripping a lot of people right now in our country, the fear of deportation and raids. Joining me at the table, one of the lead actresses of Real Women have Curves, Justina Machado. Thank you so much for being here. Congratulations. Thank you so much for your nomination. And my friend Alex, Alicia, congratulations on your nomination. Thanks for making time for this. It makes me cry reading that and thinking that progress is also a cycle. Right. We make progress and then we regress. We make progress and then we regress. How does it feel to play, to play your character every night on stage knowing that her pain is playing out in real time on the streets of our country? I have different kinds of feelings. I have a feeling of joy, revolutionary joy that I'm bringing to my people. To see themselves up there, to see that they are being seen, that they've been heard, that we're with them. And then there's the heaviness of doing it every single night. Knowing that this administration is going rogue on everything and just terrorizing my people, villainizing my people. My community is frightened. My community can't go to church, they can't go to work, they can't go to Home Depot. And it's just. It's very heavy. And I wish that we had more compassion. No matter what side you're on, this is not right. This is cruel. And when we see something like this, when we see Senator Alex Padilla being handcuffed and taken away, this means that they can do anything to you. Where is the line? No matter what you feel, where is the line? So that's what it feels like. Yeah. But. Yeah, I've been thinking about really since the morning after election day that this isn't going to. Coming back from. This isn't going to happen on sort of in a political arena. It can't just be that we find the perfect politician and he saves us. Although if we could, I feel like Buttigieg is a good person to try that. But it's gonna have to come from everyone's soul. It's gonna have to come from every community. It's gonna have to come from culture and from people saying, well, you know, we need a border. But I don't want the people who are the fabric of my community to be deported. Yes. How do you feel like people process that more nuance feeling about immigrants in their own communities where they say, oh, I'm for mass deportation, Sure, I voted for Trump, but I don't want anyone that I know and love and depend on to be deported when that's completely backwards, that what Trump is doing is indiscriminately targeting all people. I don't. I think that now they're realizing it. I hope that they're realizing, I don't know how you. I don't know how you divide those two. I don't know how you say one thing and then see what else is happening. I don't. I don't know how that happens, but I hope that what's happening now is that there's going to be more compassion and you're going to see that these are your neighbors, these are your colleagues, these are your children's friends. We're not just people that take care of your stuff. We're not just people that feed you. We're also human beings. We're citizens, and we are part of this country. So I hope that there'll be some sort of switch where they know that mass deportation, where are the rules? Mass deportation, Just that alone. Mass deportation. It's like they're just rounding people up and sending them away. They have to know that this is not the way to go about it. What does it feel like when you guys bring the house down night after night? What is that relationship like? It feels great. It's like a beautiful thing to see. Have people recognize you. A beautiful thing to be able to say these words, to sing these songs, to touch people, to maybe change minds. You know, that's another thing that we're hoping. Art is important. Art is revolutionary. Art is sometimes supposed to be uncomfortable. So if you sit there and you're a little uncomfortable, maybe there's something else awakening in you. I think the party trick that real women have curves is doing that Justina and her incredibly talented character castmates are doing on that stage every night is they are both in the most urgent show on Broadway. Yes, it's 1987, but my God, it could be 2025 Los Angeles. And at the same time, it's really fun and joyful, and we will need our joy if we want to. We'll need our artists through this period of time. You know, I was thinking about the, you know, the Trump tweet from earlier today where he's finally realized that the US Economy raised runs on the labor. Oh, yeah. Should I read that? Yeah, please. So yesterday, Jacob Zoboroff started this show off from the scene of ICE raids from Tuesday. And the pictures, you can see, you know, fruit literally dying on the vine, where that expression comes from. So today, Trump posted this quote. Our great farmers and people in the hotel and leisure business, I want to be in the leisure business in my next career, have been stating that our very aggressive policy on immigration is taking very good longtime workers away from them, with those jobs being almost impossible to replace. We must protect our farmers, but get the criminals out of the usa. Changes are coming. I don't know what that means, but I think it means that we're not going to deport some people. You have been on top of this, though, right? That the idea that business leaders were going to be the ones who get in his ear and say, listen, this policy is going to absolute wreck the US Economy. And it's not enough for him to put out a tweet. He needs to put out policies like work authorization, restoring temporary protective status, pathway for dreamers, all that. But he also has to reckon with the fact that he has nativists inside his own administration who have told a story about who we are, who we are as Latinos, who we are as immigrants, who we are as Americans. And until they are willing to reckon with that, there is no one single policy, no one single tweet that is going to be. And it's why, bless you for doing this segment right now, because I know that there are a thousand other things that we could. It certainly must be a segment of the day. It is, as you said, it's all the same story. You can't separate it into different stories. Alex Padilla is the child of immigrants. He walked in today to do his job and he got wrestled to the floor by federal agents. He then goes outside, makes his remarks in English, and what was to me the most emotional moment of the day turns then and says, I want to say this again in Spanish, at a time when they are trying to make us afraid, to make us feel that we do not belong. For him to do that is an act of bravery. And there's this beautiful line in Real Women where Anna, the daughter, says to be the child of immigrants is to be born into death, to question everything. What does it cost them? What does it cost me? But it all costs comes with such incredible privilege. And responsibility that we stand up and do our best to say, this is not who we are. You weren't supposed to make me cry. I know. You guys were not supposed to make me cry. It's so beautiful, and you're so beautiful. And you have to come back tomorrow so I can ask you. I mean, I don't even, you know, change out my winter coats. I have in so little time. And you produced this amazing, beautiful Justia. Thank you. Come back anytime. And congratulations to both of you on your Tony nominations. Thank you. The show is real. Women have Curves. It's on Broadway right now. Go see it. Quick break for us. We'll be right back. This has all been unfolding in real time, so we want to let you know that coming up on msnbc, we will have the first live interview with Senator Alex Padilla. That's coming up this evening here on msnbc. We're going to sneak in one more break. We'll be right back. Thank you so much for letting us into your homes today. I know it was a little fluid. We're grateful to you for staying.