'Authoritarians...Will Be Encouraged': Coons Condemns Alex Padilla's Removal From Noem Briefing

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On the Senate floor, Sen. Chris Coons (D-DE) responded to Sen. Alex Padilla's (D-CA) removal from DHS Sec. Kristi Noem's press briefing.

Transcript

00:00Mr. President, Mr. President, having just viewed a video of my friend and colleague Senator Alex

00:18Padilla being manhandled, thrown to the ground and handcuffed after identifying himself as

00:25Senator Alex Padilla and attempting to ask a question of the Secretary of Homeland Security,

00:33Kristi Noem, in Los Angeles. I am shaken. I am angry. And I am gravely concerned about our path

00:42forward in this body and our nation. Democracy is a gift hard won and hard earned by the sacrifice

00:51of millions who have served, fought and died. Some in moments of tumult and challenge on the

01:00beaches of Normandy, on the fields of Gettysburg, from the very beginning of our nation to this

01:05moment, millions of Americans have stepped forward and said, I will risk it all so that my children

01:13and those I do not know can live free lives. Knowing the burdens of tyranny, knowing what

01:20it meant to live under the heel of a king, our forefathers risked everything.

01:29In nations around the world that I have visited on your behalf as a Senator, people yearning

01:36for freedom and people recently free have come and spoken about how much the American example

01:44means to them. Earlier this year, I was at a global security conference, concerned about

01:52what was happening in our nation, about our division and the dialogue. And I heard three

01:58young parliamentarians from other countries talk about how hard they were working. Part of

02:07our job, Mr. Speaker, as senators is to ask hard questions, is to pose challenges, is to test

02:17the cabinet of the president, to visit federal facilities, to ask questions that are sometimes

02:23uncomfortable or unwelcome. Just this week, I was at three committee hearings and had three

02:29members of the cabinet in front of me. Did they want to answer my questions? Probably not,

02:34but they did. If a Senator of the United States, who identifies himself as a Senator in at least

02:41the video I just saw, gets handled this way, gets thrown to the ground and handcuffed, what

02:49is happening to those who have no such title or voice? If this gentle and decent and caring

02:57man is treated this way, what is happening along the margins, in the dark spaces, in the places

03:07we cannot see? So, Mr. President, I call on my Republican friends and colleagues to look

03:14hard at this moment and say, what comes next? What comes next? Are we to be at risk of arrest

03:23if we threaten to ask a question or deign to interrupt? Is our very service here as senators

03:32hanging in the balance in this moment? As we all learn more of the facts of what happened

03:38in Los Angeles, the future of what will happen here in our country and in the world will wait

03:47on your answer. Was this an over-response? Was this a misuse of force? Was this a disrespect

03:56of the very Senate itself? Is this a moment when, as our founders who wrote the Federalist

04:02Papers dreamed, my colleagues in the Senate will show their loyalty to the roll, to the

04:08check and balance, to the independence of the Senate more than they will show their loyalty

04:12to their party and their president and demand an answer, an apology and a different path

04:19forward? Or is this a moment when all of us will watch this video of our friend, a member

04:25of the Judiciary Committee, a representative, a senator of Los Angeles in the state of California

04:31being roughly mishandled and say, huh, too bad. At least it wasn't me. If we answer this moment

04:41with silence, we will be damned. And our children and the world will say they didn't really mean it.

04:53The members of my family who served in the U.S. military knew that signing on that line meant

04:59being willing to give everything. And I believe and have been told that they understood that service

05:08to be in service of freedom. Not in service of any particular president or party, any particular state or moment,

05:17but in service of democracy. Democracy is a fragile flower. And around the world, people look to what we do

05:27to know what they should do. There are petty tin pot dictators, authoritarians and strongmen around the world

05:34who will watch this video and be encouraged and think this is the way to silence their critics.

05:44I can't imagine a member of this chamber who knows Alex Padilla, who's had the blessing of sitting with him

05:53in moments when he's asked questions or engaged in discourse, who thinks of him as anything other than

05:58a reasoned, reasonable, mild-mannered senator. But even if he were not, even if he were outspoken, loud,

06:10aggressive, annoying, the title senator and the role that we have should entitle him to ask a question at a press conference.

06:20If the result is this mistreatment, heaven help us all, and heaven help our democracy. With that, I yield the floor.

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