‘Petty and unserious,’ Senator Alex Padilla responds to JD Vance misnaming him

U.S Senator Alex Padilla (D-CA) who was forcibly removed from a press conference last week during a press conference being held by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Kristi Noem in Los Angeles, responded to Vice President JD Vance after he called him "José Padilla" and accused Padilla of being performative.  

“He knows my name,” Senator Padilla said in an interview from MSNBC. “Sadly, it’s just an indicator of how petty and unserious this administration is. He’s the vice president of the United States; you’d think he would take the situation in Los Angeles more seriously. You’d think maybe he’d take a moment to talk to some of the families who have been impacted and have been terrorized to feel what’s really going on on the ground? You saw him shaking hands with Marines, but did he listen to the Marines? Because we have report after report that they don’t want to be there, that’s not what they enlisted for.” 

Vance visited Los Angeles briefly on Friday and during a press conference, he said he expected Senator Padilla to be there. 

“I was hoping José Padilla would be here to ask a question,” Vance said. “Uh, but unfortunately I guess he decided not to show up because there wasn’t a theater.”

He also said “rioters” were egged on by California's Governor Gavin Newsom and L.A. Mayor Karen Bass.

The mayor also responded to Vance. 

“You parachute in this city, you pass all kinds of judgement and then you leave and you add to the provocation,” Bass said. “You might attempt to create division, but we are united.” 

Newsom posted on social media a reel about what Vance expected to see in L.A. with explosions and destruction and the reality being sunny skies with low riders, the Griffith Observatory and L.A.’s iconic palm trees. He also called out the vice president to a debate. 

Newsom’s social media has been ramping up lately, in many ways responding to the Trump’s administration’s social media posts that promote their immigration modus operandi. 

In one video, he compares videos of the more than five million people protesting across the country on June 14, with videos of the same day when Trump organized a poorly attended military parade in Washington, D.C.