Leader Schumer Floor Remarks Demanding Immediate Investigation Into Federal Agents Forcefully Removing Senator Padilla From Noem’s DHS Press Conference

Leader Schumer Floor Remarks Demanding Immediate Investigation Into Federal Agents Forcefully Removing Senator Padilla From Noem’s DHS Press Conference

Washington, D.C. – Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) today spoke on the Senate floor to demand answers on the manhandling and forceful removal of Senator Padilla from DHS Secretary Kristi Noem’s press conference. Below are Senator Schumer’s remarks, which can also be viewed here:

I just saw something that sickened my stomach, the manhandling of a United States Senator. We need immediate answers to what the hell went on.

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I mentioned a few minutes ago that I had seen a video that sickened my stomach. A U.S. Senator being manhandled we now know by federal agents and dragged out of a hearing room. Now there's a second video.

It's even worse. He's been thrown to the ground, again manhandled, brutally taken down, handcuffed. It's disgusting.

Anyone who looks at it – anyone – anyone who looks at this, it will turn your stomach.

To look at this video and see what happened reeks—reeks—of totalitarianism.

This is not what democracies do.

Senator Padilla was there legitimately in that building, to ask questions of what's going on in California, which everybody wants to know answers to. We don't get answers when we ask the administration questions in one way or another.

So Senator Padilla was exercising his duty as a senator for his constituents to try and find out what happened. And instead he gets manhandled, thrown out of the room, thrown on the ground and handcuffed.

We need a full investigation immediately as to what happened. And who did what. And what's going to be done to see that this doesn't happen again to Senator Padilla or other American citizens who are seeking their right to redress.

It's despicable. It's disgusting.

It is so un-American, so un-American, and we need answers. We need answers immediately.

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