'This Is What Dictatorships Look Like': Chris Van Hollen Decries The Removal Of Padilla From DHS Hearing

yesterday

During remarks on the Senate floor on Thursday, Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) spoke about Sen. Alex Padilla's (D-CA) removal from a DHS press briefing.

Transcript

00:00Mr. President, I thank my friend and colleague from New Jersey, and it's hard to contain

00:11our emotion appropriately on the Senate floor. This is a moment that every American should be

00:20outraged about, and every American should be angry. And not only angry about what happened

00:27to Senator Padilla, but fearful for our democracy because we are at a crossroads when it comes

00:35to the rule of law and respect for our democracy and our Constitution in the United States of

00:42America. I felt compelled to cancel the rest of my meetings this evening, to come right

00:49here to the floor to join my colleagues in speaking out. Not just for a fellow senator,

00:55but for the future of the rule of law and due process in the United States of America.

01:05I had to rewind that video like three or four times to see if this was really happening.

01:14And I saw the earlier video come out of him being essentially dragged out of the room, roughed

01:21wall, and then the other video of him lying on his stomach, handcuffed with people standing

01:30around him. Mr. President, then the lies went out. Senator from New Jersey just mentioned

01:40it. I'm reading this statement from the Department of Homeland Security. Senator Padilla chose disrespectful

01:48to the political theater, interrupted a live press conference without identifying himself.

01:53That's a lie. Just look at the video. You can see him coming in and saying, I'm Senator Padilla,

02:01the senior senator from California. He wanted to ask a question. We all have a lot of questions.

02:11He's the United States senator. He should be able to ask a question about what's happening

02:16in his state of California. You know, we had the President of the United States just a few

02:23weeks ago, in response to a question, say he wasn't sure if he had to comply with the Constitution

02:28of the United States. The President of the United States, who's sworn to take an oath to uphold

02:33the Constitution, said he wasn't sure if he had to comply with the Constitution. You have senior

02:43administration officials like Steve Miller talking about suspending habeas corpus in the

02:49United States of America. Habeas corpus is the core to due process that makes sure that people

02:56cannot be deprived of their liberty without a fair trial and a fair hearing.

03:04And here we have Alex Padilla going in to ask a question, and he's tackled, he's roughed up,

03:12he's dragged out of the room, he's put on the floor, and handcuffed.

03:19This is a President who also the other day when asked if he would arrest the Governor of California

03:28or whether his people should arrest the Governor of California, he said,

03:31yeah, I think maybe they should. Think about that. This is an administration that arrested

03:39the mayor of a major city. This is lawless behavior from this administration.

03:48This is what a dictatorship looks like. This is what happens when one person tries to grab all the power.

04:01When they say, I don't know if I have to comply with the Constitution of the United States.

04:05The Constitution of the United States is designed to have checks and balances.

04:10It's designed to make sure that our liberties are protected.

04:15The Bill of Rights protect all of us. And yet you see the President of the United States and his henchmen and his henchwomen

04:28trampling over due process, trampling over the First Amendment in the country,

04:35and trampling on a United States Senator from California who said, Madam Secretary, I have a question.

04:48I'm looking forward to hearing about what question Senator Padilla wanted to ask.

04:54Because I know Senator Padilla, and I know he had a good question to ask of the Secretary of Homeland Security,

05:00but he didn't get a chance. This was a press conference.

05:05Secretary of Homeland Security is taking questions. The United States Senator representing the people of that state,

05:11elected to represent the people of that state, he had a question.

05:15He didn't get to ask it because he was dragged out of the room and thrown on the floor and arrested.

05:21I want to know what that question was going to be.

05:26And I know that Senator Padilla will tell us.

05:29We'll probably find out then why the Secretary of Homeland Security didn't want to hear the question.

05:36Because this administration wants to shut down questions except for from the journalists that they like.

05:46They belittle journalists who ask them any question that they see as critical.

05:57That's also what authoritarian leaders do.

06:01They push aside the people who ask hard but meaningful questions and just call on the people that will ask them the slow-ball question.

06:14You've already seen this at play in the Oval Office during press conferences that the President has.

06:19He goes, oh, I like that reporter.

06:22Oh, that's a terrible question.

06:25What he means is it's a question that he doesn't like.

06:30And usually the questions he doesn't like are questions that are right on target and go to the heart of what's happening in our country.

06:41And so Senator Padilla had a question.

06:45He just didn't get a chance to answer it.

06:47Now, I want to build on another point my colleagues have made.

06:53And that is a real appeal to our Senate Republican colleagues.

06:58Because in these first months, four or five months of the Trump administration, we've seen the actions of a lawless president.

07:12You know, it's unprecedented in the United States to have over 260 lawsuits filed in federal courts.

07:18Right?

07:19This doesn't happen normally.

07:22It's because of the massive law-breaking that we've seen going on.

07:27Attacks on civil liberties.

07:29Attacks on due process as part of that.

07:34Attacks on the First Amendment.

07:36The illegal withholding of funds that have been appropriated by the Congress.

07:42The courts can't do it alone, colleagues.

07:45Every member of this body is sworn to uphold the Constitution.

07:49The Constitution of the President of the United States now says he's not sure if he has to comply with it.

07:55I believe senators here want to take those constitutional responsibilities seriously.

08:05But if we're going to do that, we have to stand up at moments like this.

08:11Not Democratic senators alone, but Republican senators too.

08:16Because if you let the executive do this to Senator Alex Padilla today, some other executive, some other president can do it to somebody else tomorrow.

08:27If you can do this to Senator Alex Padilla, imagine how vulnerable other citizens and others in this country are to this kind of tyranny and abuse.

08:41So I hope this will be a moment, Mr. President, where people come together and stand up and say, regardless of policy differences on different issues.

08:52We're all here to debate those issues and disagree, but there's some things that we should consider fundamental and sacrosanct.

09:00And that is the idea of rule of law and due process.

09:07And what we witnessed here was the outrage that we are come to see in countries with authoritarian leaders.

09:16That's what we witnessed.

09:17And it's a pattern.

09:19But today was the most graphic example to date where a United States senator was essentially taken down as he introduced himself and said, I have a question.