[Congressional Record Volume 171, Number 101 (Thursday, June 12, 2025)]
[Senate]
[Pages S3375-S3376]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              ALEX PADILLA

  Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. President, I thank my friend and colleague from 
New Jersey.
  It is hard to contain my emotion appropriately on the Senate floor. 
This is a moment that every American should be outraged about, and 
every American should be angry, and not only angry about what happened 
to Senator Padilla but fearful for our democracy because we are at a 
crossroads when it comes to the rule of law and respect for our 
democracy and our Constitution in the United States of America.
  I felt compelled to cancel the rest of my meetings this evening to 
come right here to the floor to join my colleagues in speaking out, not 
just for a fellow Senator but for the future of the rule of law and due 
process in the United States of America.
  I had to rewind that video three or four times to see if this was 
really happening. And I saw the earlier video come out of him being, 
essentially, dragged out of the room, roughed up, and then the other 
video of him lying on his stomach, handcuffed with people standing 
around him.
  Then the lies went out that the Senator from New Jersey just 
mentioned. I am reading this statement from the Department of Homeland 
Security:

       Senator Padilla chose disrespectful political theatre and 
     interrupted a live press conference without identifying 
     himself.

  That is a lie. Just look at the video. You can see him coming in and 
saying: I am Senator Padilla, the senior Senator from California. He 
wanted to ask a question. We all have a lot of questions. He is a U.S. 
Senator, he should be able to ask a question about what is happening in 
his State of California.
  You know, we had the President of the United States, just a few weeks 
ago in response to a question, saying he wasn't sure if he had to 
comply with the Constitution of the United States. The President of the 
United States who is sworn to take an oath to uphold the Constitution 
said he wasn't sure if he had to comply with the Constitution. You have 
senior administration officials like Steve Miller talking about 
suspending habeas corpus in the United States of America. Habeas corpus 
is the core to due process that makes sure that people cannot be 
deprived of their liberty without a fair trial and a fair hearing.
  And here we have Alex Padilla going in to ask a question, and he is 
tackled; he is roughed up; he is dragged out of the room; he is put on 
the floor and handcuffed. This is a President who also the other day, 
when asked if he would arrest the Governor of California or whether his 
people should arrest the Governor of California, he said: Yeah, I think 
maybe they should.
  Think about that.
  This is an administration that arrested the mayor of a major city. 
This is lawless behavior from this administration. This is what a 
dictatorship looks like. This is what happens when one person tries to 
grab all the power, when they say: I don't know if I have to comply 
with the Constitution of the United States.
  The Constitution of the United States is designed to have checks and 
balances. It is designed to make sure that our liberties are protected. 
The Bill of Rights protects all of us. And yet you see the President of 
the United States and his henchmen and his henchwomen trampling over 
due process, trampling over the First Amendment in the country, and 
trampling on a U.S. Senator from California who said: Madam Secretary, 
I have a question.
  I am looking forward to hearing about what question Senator Padilla 
wanted to ask because I know Senator Padilla, and I know he had a good 
question to ask of the Secretary of Homeland Security, but he didn't 
get a chance. This is a press conference. The Secretary of Homeland 
Security is taking questions. The U.S. Senator representing the people 
of that State elected to represent the people of that State had a 
question. He didn't get to ask it because he was dragged out of the 
room and thrown on the floor and arrested. I want to know what that 
question was going to be, and I know that Senator Padilla will tell us. 
We will probably find out then why the Secretary of Homeland Security 
didn't want to hear the question, because this administration wants to 
shut down questions except from the journalists that they like. They 
belittle journalists who ask them any question that they see as 
critical. That is also what authoritarian leaders do; they push aside 
people who ask hard but meaningful questions and just call on the 
people who will ask them the slowball question.

  You have already seen this at play at the Oval Office during press 
conferences, the President will say: Oh, I like that reporter. Oh, that 
is a terrible question. What he means is, it is a question that he 
doesn't like. And, usually, the question he doesn't like are questions 
that are right on target and go to the heart of what is happening in 
our country.

[[Page S3376]]

  So Senator Padilla had a question. He didn't get a chance to ask it.
  I want to build on another point my colleagues have made, and that is 
a real appeal to our Senate Republican colleagues, because in these 
first months--4 or 5 months--of the Trump administration, we have seen 
the actions of a lawless President.
  You know, it is unprecedented in the United States to have over 260 
lawsuits filed in Federal courts. Right? This doesn't happen normally. 
It is because of the massive lawbreaking that we have seen going on--
attacks on civil liberties, attacks on due process is part of that, 
attacks on the First Amendment, the illegal withholding of funds that 
have been appropriated by the Congress.
  The courts didn't do it alone, colleagues. Every Member of this body 
is sworn to uphold the Constitution--the Constitution the President of 
the United States now says he is not sure if he has to comply with.
  I believe Senators here want to take those constitutional 
responsibilities seriously. But if we are going to do that, we have to 
stand up at moments like this--not Democratic Senators alone but 
Republican Senators too--because if you let the executive do this to 
Alex Padilla today, some other executive, some other President can do 
it to somebody else tomorrow. If you can do this to Alex Padilla, 
imagine how vulnerable other citizens and others in this country are to 
this kind of tyranny and abuse.
  So I hope this will be a moment where people come together and stand 
up and say: Regardless of policy differences on different issues, we 
are all here to debate those issues and disagree, but there are some 
things we should consider fundamental and sacrosanct, and that is the 
idea of rule of law and due process.
  What we witnessed here was the outrage that we have come to see in 
countries with authoritarian leaders. That is what we witnessed, and it 
is a pattern. But today was the most graphic example to date where a 
U.S. Senator was, essentially, taken down as he introduced himself and 
said ``I have a question.''
  So I have a question for all of our colleagues: What are we going to 
do about it? Who are we? What do we stand for? Are we going to uphold 
the Constitution?
  I am looking forward to hearing the question Senator Padilla wanted 
to ask, but I also ask all of us a question, and that is, Are we going 
to use this moment to stand up for decency and to stand up for the fair 
treatment of every American?
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Connecticut.

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