FRIDAY: Senator Padilla describes what occurred!

FRIDAY, JUNE 20, 2025

Gutfeld, guests crawl in the gutter: Today, we have nice words to say about some Republican senators. Recent comments by these solons were quoted in a news report by the Washington Post. 

The report discusses Senator Padilla's recent speech in the U.S. Senate—his speech about the way was removed from a press conference, and briefly handcuffed, out in his hometown, L.A.

Four Republican solons were quoted in the Post's report. This is what they said:

What did Sen. Alex Padilla get handcuffed for?

[...]

Over 30 of Padilla’s Democratic colleagues listened intently [to Senator Padilla] as he recounted the questions swirling in his mind during the incident.

“What will my wife think? What will our boys think? And I also remember asking myself: If this aggressive escalation is the result of someone speaking up against the abuses and overreach of the Trump administration, was it really worth it?”

A few Republicans also listened—though they slipped out of the chamber once he finished without addressing him face to face, and not all of them were eager to discuss it afterward.

“You know, he’s a good friend. I just wanted to be supportive,” said Sen. John Boozman (R-Arkansas), boarding one of the underground trolleys.

“Well, he just invited me,” said Sen. James Lankford (R-Oklahoma), before quickly heading back into the chamber.

“I attended a speech. I like Alex Padilla,” said Sen. Thom Tillis (R-North Carolina), as the doors of an elevator outside the chamber closed.

The elevator doors opened back up. Tillis had more to say. He called the treatment Padilla received “absolutely disgusting” while adding that a standard should not be set where senators are comfortable interrupting a high-ranking official’s news conference.

[...]

“The whole encounter just baffled me and didn’t make sense to me,” said Sen. Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyoming), “but I do know this. I know a genuinely gentle, kind person when I see one, and I’m a pretty good judge of character. And Alex Padilla is a kind, gentle person.”

Personally, we admire people who are kind, gentle people. We also like people who understand that they're actually praising other people when they describe them that way.

Especially in the current atmosphere, we like people who are willing to say nice things about members of the other party, even when the other person in question is under the partisan tribal gun, as Senator Padilla has been in the past week.

(Below, we'll link you to what happened when they pried the lid off the garbage can on Wednesday evening's Gutfeld! show and the creatures who slithered out devoted a segment to sliming Padilla. Blue elites have uniformly agreed that there's nothing to look at with "cable news" conduct like that.)

"I like Senator Padilla," Senator Tillis said. Senator Padilla "is a kind, gentle person," Senator Lummis said. "He's a good friend," said Senator Boozman.

We think it's good that those people said those things. That said, we continue to be struck by the account Senator Padilla continues to give of what happened that day.

We feel sure that Senator Padilla is a good decent, person. For various reasons, we can imagine that what happened to him that day was deeply embarrassing, possibly deeply upsetting.

That said, Senator Padilla has written a guest essay for the New York Times about what happened that day. Below, you see the way the essay begins:

Senator Padilla: This Is How an Administration Acts When It’s Afraid

Growing up in the northeastern San Fernando Valley of Los Angeles in the 1980s and ’90s, I knew what could happen if you didn’t completely cooperate with law enforcement.

Even so, it was jarring last week when, despite clearly identifying myself as a U.S. senator, I was forcibly removed from a news conference at which Kristi Noem, the secretary of homeland security, promised to “liberate” Los Angeles from our democratically elected mayor and governor. As I was thrown to the ground, handcuffed and taken down a hall while officers refused to tell me why I was being detained, my mind raced with questions.

Where are they taking me? Am I being arrested? What will residents of a city already on edge from being militarized think when they see their senator has just been handcuffed?

What will my wife and our three boys think?

I imagined similar questions were running through the mind of Brad Lander, the New York City comptroller and mayoral candidate, this week when he, too, was handcuffed by federal agents for asking them whether they had a warrant to arrest a migrant he had locked arms with. Like me, Mr. Lander had the audacity to question the legitimacy of federal actions, only to find himself pushed against a wall and detained. 

Simply put, that isn't what happened in that day in L.A. Something is missing from that account of the day's events, as you can surely see.

It's a key tenet of Trumpism: A person must never admit a mistake. A person must never apologize, must never say that he may have been wrong in something he may have done.

Above, you see the solon's account of what happened that day. Except that isn't what happened.

We think he made a mistake that day. (Everyone does at some point, sometimes for obvious reasons.)

It wouldn't have hurt if he'd simply said do. In our view, it could have been a step in the right direction.

Instead, Senator Padilla, a good decent person, continues to give this bowdlerized account of his own behavior that day—in his spots on TV shows, and now in the New York Times.

Anyone can make a mistake. Also, we feel quite sure that Senator Padilla—the agent of an impressive life story—is a thoroughly good, decent person, just like those senators said.

Now for the rest of the story: When Fox News pried the lid off the garbage can, this is what came crawling out. That segment about Senator Padilla's speech was aired this past Wednesday night on the routinely gruesome Gutfeld! program.

We dare you to watch that segment. Garbage of this general type is rolled out on Gutfeld! every night. Blue America's major new orgs don't say a word about this break with broadcast news traditions.

Our journalists refuse to speak. They refuse to perform their role in our flailing and failing society.

That segment is prime time "cable news." It gets even worse on this startling show, but go ahead:

Just watch it.