California senator handcuffed during Trump administration news conference
Democratic lawmakers have expressed outrage after United States Senator Alex Padilla of California was roughly removed from a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) news conference, then forced to the ground and handcuffed.
A video of the incident shows Padilla appearing to interrupt a Thursday news conference in Los Angeles held by DHS chief Kristi Noem.
'I am Senator Alex Padilla,' he said, stepping forward as Noem spoke. 'I have a question for the secretary.'
But he never got a chance to ask the question. Agents with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) had already surrounded Padilla and were pushing him out of the conference room. A mobile phone video shot by a member of Padilla's staff showed the senator yelling, 'Hands off,' as he was escorted into an adjacent hallway.
Agents ultimately forced him to the ground, as Padilla protested he could not keep his hands behind his back as requested and lay his body flat at the same time. One FBI agent then stood in front of the camera and ordered the staffer to stop recording.
The senator's office has said Padilla is currently not detained. In a statement, it explained that Padilla had hoped to question Noem and General Gregory Guillot about the US military deployment against protesters in Los Angeles.
'Senator Padilla is currently in Los Angeles exercising his duty to perform Congressional oversight of the federal government's operations in Los Angeles and across California,' his office said in a statement.
'He was in the federal building to receive a briefing with General Guillot and was listening to Secretary Noem's press conference. He tried to ask the Secretary a question, and was forcibly removed by federal agents.'
What just happened to @SenAlexPadilla is absolutely abhorrent and outrageous.
He is a sitting United States Senator.
This administration's violent attacks on our city must end.pic.twitter.com/qbh9ZPE8i9
— Mayor Karen Bass (@MayorOfLA) June 12, 2025Padilla himself held a news conference afterwards, where he drew a parallel between his rough treatment and the immigration raids happening under the administration of President Donald Trump.
'If this is how this administration responds to a senator with a question, I can only imagine what they're doing to farm workers, to cooks, to day labourers out in the Los Angeles community and throughout California and throughout the country,' Padilla told reporters.
The recent protests in Los Angeles came in response to the Trump administration's aggressive deportation campaign, which has targeted undocumented workers at places such as the Home Depot hardware store chain.
Trump has since responded to those protests by deploying nearly 4,000 National Guard troops and 700 US Marines to southern California, in what critics have called an illegal use of military power against civilians.
On Thursday, Padilla's Democratic colleagues in the Senate rushed to voice their support after the incident.
'I just saw something that sickened my stomach — the manhandling of a United States senator,' Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said. 'We need immediate answers to what the hell went on.'
Representative Maxwell Frost of Florida later shot a video showing Democrats walking to Senate Majority Leader John Thune's office to call for action.
'There must be accountability for the detainment of a Senator. This is not normal,' Frost wrote.
On social media, however, DHS accused Padilla of engaging in 'disrespectful political theatre'. It argued that the senator had not identified himself as he 'lunged' towards Noem, something that appears to be contradicted by video of the incident.
DHS said Noem met Padilla after the news conference for 15 minutes.
California officials have accused Trump of provoking tensions in the state by sending the military to crack down on the protests, some of which turned violent but have already started to ease.
The last time a president deployed the National Guard in a state over the objections of a governor was in 1965, to protect civil rights protesters from violence in segregated Alabama.
Governor Gavin Newsom has since sued the Trump administration to block the use of US military might outside of federal sites, calling it a step towards 'authoritarianism'.
Earlier this week, Padilla said that Trump's immigration raids were 'terrorising communities, breaking apart families and putting American citizens in harm's way'.
Trump has suggested that he could have California Governor Gavin Newsom arrested and mused that he could declare martial law if the protests continue. He also described the protesters as 'animals' and 'a foreign enemy', framing them as part of a wider 'invasion' that justifies emergency powers.
'If they can handcuff a US Senator for asking a question, imagine what they will do to you,' Newsom said in a social media post that showed a picture of Padilla being held on the ground by three agents.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Al Jazeera
9 hours ago
- Al Jazeera
What is Canada's digital tax and why is Trump killing trade talks over it?
As Canada pushes ahead with a new digital services tax on foreign and domestic technology companies, United States President Donald Trump has retaliated by ending all trade talks and threatened to impose additional tariffs on exports from Ottawa. In a post on his Truth Social platform on Friday, Trump called the new Canadian tax structure a 'direct and blatant attack on our country', adding that Canada is 'a very difficult country to trade with'. 'Based on this egregious Tax, we are hereby terminating ALL discussions on Trade with Canada, effective immediately,' he wrote. He added that he would announce new tariffs of his own for Canada in a matter of days. US companies such as Amazon, Meta, Google and Uber face an estimated $2bn in bills under the new tax. Trump's decision marks a sharp return to trade tensions between the two countries, abruptly ending a more cooperative phase since Mark Carney's election as Canada's prime minister in March. It also marks a further escalation in the trade-as-pressure tactic under Trump's second term in Washington. The US is Canada's largest trading partner by far, with more than 80 percent of Canadian exports destined for the US. In 2024, total bilateral goods trade exceeded US$762bn, with Canada exporting $412.7bn and importing $349.4bn – leaving the US, which counts Canada as its second-largest trading partner, with a goods deficit of $63.3bn. A disruption due to tariffs on products like automobiles, minerals, energy or aluminium could have large ripple effects across both economies. So, what is Canada's digital tax? Why is Carney facing domestic pushback on the taxes? And how is Washington responding? What is Canada's digital services tax? Canada's Digital Services Tax Act (DSTA) came into force in June last year. It is a levy on tech revenues generated from Canadian users – even if providers do not have a physical presence in the country. The DSTA was first proposed during the 2019 federal election under then-Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, and received approval in Canada on June 20, 2024. It came into force a week later, on June 28. The first payments of this tax are due on Monday, June 30, 2025. Large technology firms with global revenues exceeding $820m and Canadian revenues of more than $14.7m must pay a 3 percent levy on certain digital services revenues earned in Canada. Unlike traditional corporate taxes based on profits, this tax targets gross revenue linked to Canadian user engagement. Digital services the levy will apply to include: Online marketplaces, social media platforms, digital advertising and the sale or licensing of user data. One of the most contentious parts of the new framework for businesses is its retroactive nature, which demands payments on revenues dating back to January 1, 2022. Why is Trump suspending trade talks over the new tax? On June 11, 21 US Congress members sent a letter to President Trump, urging him to pressure Canada to eliminate or pause its Digital Services Tax. 'If Canada decides to move forward with this unprecedented, retroactive tax, it will set a terrible precedent that will have long-lasting impacts on global tax and trade practices,' they wrote. Then, in a Truth Social post on Friday this week, Trump said Canada had confirmed it would continue with its new digital services tax 'on our American Technology Companies, which is a direct and blatant attack on our Country'. He added that the US would be 'terminating ALL discussions on Trade with Canada, effective immediately' and that he would be levying new tariffs of his own on Canada within seven days. 'They have charged our Farmers as much as 400% Tariffs, for years, on Dairy Products,' Trump said, adding, 'We will let Canada know the Tariff that they will be paying to do business with the United States of America within the next seven day period.' Later, at the Oval Office, Trump doubled down, saying: 'We have all the cards. We have every single one.' He noted that the US holds 'such power over Canada [economically]'. 'We'd rather not use it,' Trump said, adding: 'It's not going to work out well for Canada. They were foolish to do it. 'Most of their business is with us, and when you have that circumstance, you treat people better.' Trump also said he would order a Section 301 investigation under the Trade Act to assess the DSTA's effect on US commerce, which could potentially lead to other punitive measures. On Friday, White House National Economic Council director, Kevin Hassett, told the Fox Business Friday programme: 'They're taxing American companies who don't necessarily even have a presence in Canada.' Calling the tax 'almost criminal', he said: 'They're going to have to remove it. And I think they know that.' How has Canada responded? Relations had seemed friendlier between the two North American neighbours in recent months as they continue with trade talks. Trump and former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau had clashed previously – with Trump calling Trudeau 'very dishonest' and 'weak' during the 2018 G7 talks in Canada. But newly elected Carney enjoyed a cordial visit with Trump in May at the White House, while Trump travelled to Canada for the G7 summit in Alberta on June 16 and 17. Carney said at the summit that the two had set a 30-day deadline for trade talks. In a brief statement on Friday, Prime Minister Carney's office said of Trump's new threats to suspend trade talks over the digital tax: 'The Canadian government will continue to engage in these complex negotiations with the United States in the best interests of Canadian workers and businesses.' Last week, Canadian Finance Minister Francois-Philippe Champagne told reporters that the digital tax could be negotiated as part of the broader, ongoing US-Canada trade discussions. 'Obviously, all of that is something that we're considering as part of broader discussions that you may have,' he had said. Those discussions had been expected to result in a trade deal in July. However, they are now in limbo. What do Canadian business leaders say? Carney has been facing pressure from domestic businesses as well, which have lobbied the government to pause the digital services tax, underlining that the new framework would increase their costs for providing services and warning against retaliation from the US. The Business Council of Canada, a nonprofit organisation representing CEOs and leaders of major Canadian companies, said in a statement that, for years, it 'has warned that the implementation of a unilateral digital services tax could risk undermining Canada's economic relationship with its most important trading partner, the United States'. 'That unfortunate development has now come to pass,' the statement noted. 'In an effort to get trade negotiations back on track, Canada should put forward an immediate proposal to eliminate the DST in exchange for the elimination of tariffs from the United States.' Has Trump used tariffs to pressure Canada before? Yes. Prior to the DSTA, Trump has used tariffs to pressure Canada over what he says is its role in the flow of the addictive drug, fentanyl, and undocumented migration into the US, as well as broader trade and economic issues. On January 20, in his inaugural address, Trump announced a 25 percent tariff on all Canadian goods and a 10 percent tariff on Canadian energy resources. Trump claimed that Canada has a 'growing footprint' in fentanyl production, and alleged that Mexican cartels operate fentanyl labs in Canada, particularly in British Columbia, Alberta and Ontario. These tariffs were paused for 30 days following assurances from Canada that appropriate action would be taken to curb the flow of fentanyl, and then re-imposed in early March. Do other countries levy a similar digital tax? Yes, several countries around the world have introduced digital services taxes (DSTs) similar to Canada's. France was one of the first to introduce a DST in 2019, eliciting an angry response from Trump who was serving his first term as president. The French tax is a 3 percent levy on revenues from online advertising, digital platforms and sales of user data. The UK followed with a 2 percent tax on revenues from social media platforms and search engines. Spain, Italy, and Austria have also implemented similar taxes, with rates ranging from 3 to 5 percent. Turkiye has one of the highest DST rates at 7.5 percent, covering a wide range of digital services such as content streaming and advertising. Outside Europe, India has a 2 percent 'equalisation levy' on foreign e-commerce operators which earn revenues from Indian users. Kenya and Indonesia have also created their own digital tax systems, though they're structured slightly differently – Indonesia, for instance, applies Value Added Tax (VAT) – or sales tax – on foreign digital services, rather than a DST. The US government has strongly opposed these taxes; some of these disputes have been paused as part of ongoing negotiations led by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), an international organisation made up of 38 member countries, which is working on a global agreement for taxing digital companies fairly. Canada held off on implementing its DST until 2024 to give time for the OECD talks. But when progress stalled, it went ahead with the 3 percent tax that applies retroactively since January 2022. Should the EU be worried about this? The European Union is likely to be watching this situation closely as digital tax is likely to be a key concern during its own trade talks with the US. Trump has repeatedly warned that similar tax measures from other allies, including EU countries, could face severe retaliation. Trump's administration has previously objected to digital taxes introduced by EU member states like France, Italy, and Spain. In 2020, the US Trade Representative investigated these taxes under Section 301 and threatened retaliatory tariffs, though those were paused pending OECD-led global tax negotiations. The European Commission has confirmed that digital taxation remains on the agenda, especially if a global deal under the OECD fails to materialise. President Ursula von der Leyen said on June 26 that 'all options remain on the table' in trade discussions with the US, including enforcement mechanisms against discriminatory US measures. The high-stakes trade negotiations ongoing between the US and the EU have a deadline for July 9 – the date that Trump's 90-day pause on global reciprocal tariffs is due to expire. Trump has threatened to impose new tariffs of up to 50 percent on key European exports, including cars and steel, if a deal is not reached. In response to these threats, the EU has prepared a list of retaliatory tariffs worth up to 95 billion euros ($111.4bn), which would target a broad range of US exports, from agricultural products to Boeing aircraft. EU leaders have signalled that they will defend the bloc's tax sovereignty, while remaining open to negotiation.
Al Jazeera
16 hours ago
- Al Jazeera
US funeral home owner who stashed 191 bodies sentenced to 20 years
A judge in the US state of Colorado has handed a funeral home owner, who stashed 191 dead bodies on his premises, a 20-year prison sentence for cheating customers and defrauding the federal government. Federal prosecutors had sought a 15-year sentence for Jon Hallford, the owner of Return to Nature Funeral Home in Colorado, where he and his wife, Carie Hallford, stored bodies between 2019 and 2023 and sent families fake ashes. At Friday's hearing, US District Judge Nina Wang said the circumstances and scale of John Hallford's crimes, as well as the emotional damage to families he inflicted, warranted a longer sentence. 'This is not an ordinary fraud case,' Judge Wang said. Investigators were called to the dilapidated, insect-infested building in the small town of Penrose, about 160 kilometres (100 miles) south of Denver, in 2023 after reports of an 'abhorrent smell' coming from the property. At trial, investigators described finding the bodies stacked on top of each other and being unable to move into some rooms because they were piled so high with human remains. FBI agents also had to put boards down so they could walk around the crime scene and above the bodily fluid that had pooled on the ground. The morbid discovery by investigators in 2023 revealed for the first time to many families that the ashes they had received from Return to Nature were fake. Court documents showed Hallford had sent families urns filled with dry concrete mix, and in two cases, the wrong body had been buried. In separate charges, Jon Hallford has pleaded guilty to 191 counts of corpse abuse in state court. He is scheduled to be sentenced for those charges in August. Carie Hallford is scheduled to go to trial in the federal case in September. That same month, she will attend her next hearing in the state case, in which she's also charged with 191 counts of corpse abuse. COVID-19 fraud At Friday's hearing, Jon Hallford was also jailed for defrauding the US federal government out of nearly $900,000 in emergency financial assistance provided to Americans dealing with the economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. In a news statement, the US Attorney's Office in the District of Colorado said the Hallfords had 'defrauded the Small Business Administration through fraudulent COVID-19 loan applications'. Federal prosecutors said the Hallfords syphoned the money and spent it, along with customers' payments, on SUVs worth more than $120,000, along with $31,000 in cryptocurrency, and luxury items from stores like Gucci and Tiffany & Co. In addition to his jail sentence, Jon Hallford was also 'ordered to pay $1,070,413.74 in restitution for a conspiracy to commit wire fraud', according to the District of Colorado. The District of Colorado statement said the Hallfords had 'collected more than $130,000 from grieving families for funeral services that were never provided'. 'Instead of ensuring proper disposition of the remains, Hallford allowed bodies to accumulate in various states of decay and decomposition inside the funeral home's facility,' it said. According to an order suspending the home's registration as a funeral establishment, Jon Hallford had claimed when the bodies were discovered 'that he practises taxidermy' at the property. In court before the sentencing, Jon Hallford told the judge that he opened Return to Nature to make a positive impact on people's lives, but 'then everything got completely out of control'. 'I am so deeply sorry for my actions,' he said. 'I still hate myself for what I've done.'
Al Jazeera
21 hours ago
- Al Jazeera
What cases did the US Supreme Court decide at the end of its 2024 term?
The United States Supreme Court has ended its latest term with a host of blockbuster decisions, touching on everything from healthcare coverage to school reading lists. On Friday, the court issued the final decisions of the 2024 term before it takes several months of recess. The nine justices on its bench will reconvene in October. But before their departure, the justices made headlines. In a major victory for the administration of President Donald Trump, the six-person conservative majority decided to limit the ability of courts to issue universal injunctions that would block executive actions nationwide. Trump has long denounced court injunctions as an attack on his executive authority. In two other rulings, the Supreme Court's conservative majority again banded together. One decision allowed parents to opt out of school materials that include LGBTQ themes, while the other gave the go-ahead to Texas to place barriers to prevent youth from viewing online pornography. But a decision on healthcare access saw some conservative justices align with their three left-wing colleagues. Here is an overview of their final rulings of the 2024 term. Court upholds preventive care requirements In the case of Kennedy v Braidwood Management, the Supreme Court saw its usual ideological divides fracture. Three conservative justices – Amy Coney Barrett, Brett Kavanaugh and John Roberts – joined with the court's liberal branch, represented by Sonia Sotomayor, Ketanji Brown Jackson and Elena Kagan, for a six-to-three ruling. At stake was the ability of a government task force to determine what kinds of preventive healthcare the country's insurance providers had to cover. It was the latest case to challenge the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act, a piece of legislation passed under former President Barack Obama to expand healthcare access. This case focused on a section of the act that allowed a panel of health experts – under the Department of Health and Human Services – to determine what preventive services should be covered at no cost. A group of individuals and Christian-owned businesses had challenged the legality of that task force, though. They argued that the expert panel was a violation of the Appointments Clause, a section of the Constitution that requires certain political appointees to be chosen by the president and approved by the Senate. The group had previously secured an injunction against the task force's decision that HIV prevention medications be covered as preventive care. That specific injunction was not weighed in the Supreme Court's decision. But writing for the majority, Justice Kavanaugh affirmed that the task force was constitutional, because it was made up of 'inferior officers' who did not need Senate approval. Court gives nod to Texas's age restrictions on porn Several states, including Texas, require users to verify their age before accessing pornographic websites, with the aim of shielding minors from inappropriate material. But Texas's law came under the Supreme Court's microscope on Friday, in a case called Free Speech Coalition v Ken Paxton. The Free Speech Coalition is a nonprofit that represents workers in the adult entertainment industry. They sued Texas's attorney general, Paxton, arguing that the age-verification law would dampen First Amendment rights, which protect the right to free expression, free association and privacy. The plaintiffs noted the risks posed by sharing personally identifying information online, including the possibility that identifying information like birthdates and sensitive data could be leaked. The American Civil Liberties Union, for instance, warned that Texas's law 'robs people of anonymity'. Writing for the Supreme Court's conservative majority, Justice Clarence Thomas acknowledged that 'submitting to age verification is a burden on the exercise' of First Amendment rights. But, he added, 'adults have no First Amendment right to avoid age verification' altogether. The majority upheld Texas's law. Court affirms children can withdraw from LGBTQ school material The Supreme Court's conservative supermajority also continued its streak of religious freedom victories, with a decision in Mahmoud v Taylor. That case centred on the Montgomery County Board of Education in Maryland, where books portraying LGBTQ themes had been approved for use in primary school curricula. One text, for example, was a picture book called Love, Violet, which told the story of a young girl mustering the courage to give a Valentine to a female classmate. Another book, titled Pride Puppy, follows a child searching for her lost dog during an annual parade to celebrate LGBTQ pride. Parents of children in the school district objected to the material on religious grounds, and some books, like Pride Puppy, were eventually withdrawn. But the board eventually announced it would refuse to allow parents to opt out of the approved material, on the basis that it would create disruptions in the learning environment. Some education officials also argued that allowing kids to opt out of LGBTQ material would confer a stigma on the people who identify as part of that community – and that LGBTQ people were simply a fact of life. In the majority's decision, Justice Samuel Alito asserted that the education board's policy 'conveys that parents' religious views are not welcome in the 'fully inclusive environment' that the Board purports to foster'. 'The curriculum itself also betrays an attempt to impose ideological conformity with specific views on sexuality and gender,' Alito wrote. Court limits the use of nationwide injunctions Arguably, the biggest decision of the day was another ruling decided by the Supreme Court's conservative supermajority. In the case Trump v CASA, the Trump administration had appealed the use of nationwide injunctions all the way up to the highest court in the land. At stake was an executive order Trump signed on his first day in office for his second term. That order sought to whittle down the concept of birthright citizenship, a right conferred under the Fourteenth Amendment of the US Constitution. Previously, birthright citizenship had applied to nearly everyone born on US soil: Regardless of their parents' nationality, the child would receive US citizenship. But Trump has denounced that application of birthright citizenship as too broad. In his executive order, he put restrictions on birthright citizenship depending on whether the parents were undocumented immigrants. Legal challenges erupted as soon as the executive order was published, citing Supreme Court precedent that upheld birthright citizenship regardless of the nationality of the parent. Federal courts in states like Maryland and Washington quickly issued nationwide injunctions to prevent the executive order from taking effect. The Supreme Court on Friday did not weigh the merits of Trump's order on birthright citizenship. But it did evaluate a Trump administration petition arguing that the nationwide injunctions were instances of judicial overreach. The conservative supermajority sided with Trump, saying that injunctions should generally not be universal but instead should focus on relief for the specific plaintiffs at hand. One possible exception, however, would be for class action lawsuits. Amy Coney Barrett, the court's latest addition and a Trump appointee, penned the majority's decision. 'No one disputes that the Executive has a duty to follow the law,' she wrote. 'But the Judiciary does not have unbridled authority to enforce this obligation – in fact, sometimes the law prohibits the Judiciary from doing so.'
