Letters from an American - June 12, 2025

Episode Date: June 13, 2025

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June 12, 2025. At a press conference for Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem in Los Angeles today, Noem's security assaulted Senator Alex Padilla, a Democrat of California, dragged him into the hallway, forced him to the floor, and handcuffed him as he tried to ask the secretary a question. Senator Padilla is the highest-ranking Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration, Citizenship, and Border Safety. That subcommittee has oversight of federal agencies with citizenship, asylum, refugee, and immigration enforcement responsibilities.

After the attack, Senator Padilla explained, I'm here in Los Angeles today, and I was here in the federal building in the conference room awaiting a scheduled briefing from federal officials as part of my responsibility as a senator to provide oversight and accountability. While I was waiting for the briefing, I heard that Secretary Noem was having a press conference a couple of doors down the hall. 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 no 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. 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 was not arrested. I was not detained. 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 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." Secretary Noem implied that neither she nor her security knew who the senator was, but even if she had forgotten speaking with him in Senate hearings, a video of the encounter records him saying clearly, I am Senator Alex Padilla. I have a question for the secretary." Senator or not, he did not behave in a way that suggested a threat to the secretary.

The Department of Homeland Security said Padilla chose disrespectful political theater and interrupted a live news conference and claimed that he lunged toward the secretary. Senator Patty Murray, a Democrat of Washington, answered, this is a lie. We all saw the video. The senator clearly identified himself, and he did not lunge toward anyone. She added, if these miserable propagandists will lie to you about roughing up a U.S. senator in a room full of reporters, what won't they lie to you about?

The assault on Padilla comes days after the Department of Justice under Trump indicted Representative LaMonica MacGyver, a Democrat of New Jersey, on federal charges saying she impeded immigration officers outside a New Jersey detention center. While Democratic senators and representatives are outraged, they're having little success getting their Republican colleagues to join them. House Speaker Mike Johnson, a Republican of Louisiana, suggested that Padilla had charged Noem,

the videos show no such thing, and suggested the Senate should censure Padilla for wildly inappropriate behavior. While much focus has been on the assault itself, what Noam was saying before Padilla spoke out is crucially important. We are not going away, she said. We are staying here to liberate this city from the socialists and the burdensome leadership that this governor and that this mayor have placed on this country and what they have

tried to insert into the city. In other words, the Trump administration is vowing to get rid of the democratically elected government of California by using military force. That threat is the definition of a coup. It suggests MAGA considers any political victory but their own to be illegitimate, and considers themselves justified in removing those governmental officials with violence, a continuation of the attempt of January 6, 2021, to overturn the results of a presidential election. Priscilla Alvarez and Natasha Bertrand of CNN reported today that although the Trump

administration said its federalization of the National Guard and mobilization of Marines into Los Angeles was an emergency response to rioting, in fact, White House officials began talking about using the National Guard and the military as support for immigration enforcement as early as February. White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller and officials from the Department of Homeland Security led the talks. They also want to use military facilities to hold detainees. Andrew Gumbel of The Guardian reported today that the National Guard troops and Marines deployed to Los Angeles do not want to be

caught in a political battle and are deeply unhappy about their position. Marine Corps veteran Janessa Goldback, who runs the Vet Voice Foundation, told Gumbel, the overall perception was that the situation was nowhere at the level where Marines were necessary. Yesterday, Trump's hand-picked chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, retired Lieutenant General Dan Kaine, told the Senate that the United States is not, in fact, being invaded by a foreign nation, the argument Trump used to send Venezuelans to the notorious CICOT prison in El Salvador. Kane said, at this point in time,

I don't see any foreign state-sponsored folks invading. Asked by Senator Brian Schatz, a Democrat of Hawaii, if there was a rebellion somewhere in the United States, he answered simply, I think there's definitely some frustrated folks out there. Alvarez and Bertrand note that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Wednesday confirmed what California Governor Gavin Newsom has been calling out, that Trump's Saturday order activating the National Guard was not specific to California.

It could apply to other states. Part of it was about getting ahead of the program so that if in other places, if there are other riots in places where law enforcement officers are threatened, we would have the capability to surge National Guard there if necessary, Hegseth said on Wednesday. Earlier this week, Texas announced plans

to deploy 5,000 troops, and Dionne Cerci of The New York Times reported today that Missouri's Republican Governor, Mike Kehoe, activated the Missouri National Guard as well. While other states may wait for chaos to ensue, the state of Missouri is taking a proactive approach in the event that assistance is needed to support local law enforcement in protecting our citizens and communities," Kehoe said in a press release. It certainly appears as though militarization is no longer about deportations.

This morning, Trump posted on social media, Our great farmers and people in the hotel and leisure business have been stating that our very aggressive policy on immigration is taking very good, long-time workers away from them, with those jobs being almost impossible to replace. In many cases, the criminals allowed into our country by the very stupid Biden Open Borders Policy are applying for those jobs. This is not good. We must protect our farmers, but get the criminals out of the USA. Changes are coming.

This afternoon, he told reporters, Our farmers are being hurt badly by, you know, they have very good workers. They've worked for them for 20 years. They're not citizens, but they've turned out to be, you know, great. And we're going to have to do something about that. We can't take farmers and take all their people and send them back because they don't have maybe what they're supposed to have, maybe not. And you know what's going to happen, and what is happening?

They get rid of some of the people, because you know you go into a farm, and you look, and people don't, they've been there for 20, 25 years, and they've worked great, and the owner of the farm loves them and everything else. And then you're supposed to throw them out, and you know what happens? They end up hiring the people, the criminals

that have come in, the murderers from prisons and everything else. So we're going to have an order on that pretty soon, I think. We can't do that to our farmers and leisure too, hotels. We're going to have to use a lot of common sense on that. So if it is no longer administration policy to engage in the sweeps that are causing such chaos and sparking protests, why are Republican authorities mobilizing troops? After today's events, Representative Jamie Raskin, a Democrat of Maryland, a constitutional scholar, stood in front of the Capitol and reminded Americans, we have no kings here.

We have no queens here. We have no queens here. We have no emperors. We have no dictators. We have no despots, and we have no serfs, and no slaves, and no subjects. And none of us is a subject to Donald Trump. None of us is a subject to Mike Johnson. We are all citizens. Those of us who aspire subject to Mike Johnson. We are all citizens.

Those of us who aspire and attain to public office are nothing but the servants of the people. And the minute that somebody in public office thinks that they're a king, they're a queen, they're an emperor, they're a dictator, then it is time for the people to evict, eject, reject, impeach, try, convict, and start all over again, because the most important words of our Constitution are the three first words of the Constitution.

We the people. Tonight U.S. District Judge Charles R. Breyer ruled that Trump broke the law when he federalized the California National Guard and that he must return those troops to the control of California Governor Gavin Newsom. Breyer granted California's request for a restraining order, but delayed enforcement of his order until Friday at noon. Just before midnight Eastern Time, a panel of the Ninth Circuit granted a stay that permits Trump to retain control until a June 17th hearing. Tonight, Israel launched what it

called a preemptive strike on Iran and declared a state of emergency in Israel in anticipation of a retaliatory strike. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who is also currently Trump's national security advisor, issued a statement for the White House saying that the U.S. was not involved in the strikes and that our top priority is protecting American forces in the region. He urged Iran not to target U.S. interests or personnel. Letters from an American was written and read by Heather Cox Richardson. It was produced at Soundscape Productions,

Dead in Massachusetts, recorded with music composed by Michael Moss.